Country gets break from doctors’ strike until after Pessah

Israel Medical Association announces no sanctions until after holiday festival, even though no progress seen in positions of employers.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
DOCTORS AT Kaplan Hospital 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
DOCTORS AT Kaplan Hospital 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
There will be no doctors’ sanctions until after the festival of Pessah, during which they will be “suspended,” the Israel Medical Association announced on Thursday.
This is not really a gesture of goodwill, however, as there are many fewer procedures in hospitals during this and other major holidays and fewer doctors on duty.
“Even though we have not yet seen real progress in the positions of the employers [the Treasury and other hospital owners], out of responsibility to the public, the IMA’s management decided that from now until the end of Pessah, all organizational steps including strikes and sanctions will be suspended.
We hope that this window of opportunity will lead the Treasury to prepare a real program to solve the problem and save the public health system,” the IMA said. Thus ,the last day of the warning strikes and sanctions in the public hospitals until after Pessah was Wednesday.
The Treasury commented that after Thursday’s negotiations, which did not lead to progress, the “Finance Minister reiterates that only when the heads of the IMA drop their demand for a wage increase for all doctors will the discussions be able to advance.”