There is a widening rift between the Israel Medical Association and doctors in the field. Hundreds of specialists at Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital) in Tel Aviv today told Medical Association chairman Dr. Leonid Eidelman that he had no authority to sign on their behalf an agreement with the Ministry of Finance that would include time clocks and would, for the first time, require new specialists to work in shifts like interns.
The Ichilov doctors called on Eidelman to hold a "democratic vote" of all doctors before signing an agreement. At the meeting that he convened at the hospital, Eidelman replied that the Medical Association had the authority to sign, because it was democratically elected to represent doctors. He said that he had no intention of holding a vote now.
The Icholov doctors said that Eidelman's stubbornness was liable to split the doctors and the Medical Association. Eidelman replied, "Government officials at the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health are constantly trying to divide the doctors, and they have had a great success."
Yesterday, the National Labor Court issued an injunction banning specialists and other doctors from abandoning the wards in breach of the Medical Association's orders and promise to the court to suspend sanctions until Sunday and resume negotiations. National Labor Court President Judge Nili Arad said that the doctors strike was illegal and unfair.
The doctors chose other measures to bypass the injunction. Doctors at Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba launched a hunger strike, and some specialists at the Rabin Medical Center (Beilinson Hospital) in Petah Tikva and Sheba Medical Center Tel Hashomer hospitalized themselves to create overcrowding in the wards. At the same time, nurses at six wards at Tel Hashomer quit their wards to protest the government's failure to comply with the agreement to add nursing positions.
"Some doctors have already announced that they will go to private medicine or reduce their work in the public health system," Ministry of Health director general Ronny Gamzo told "Globes". "This is a wonderful and most satisfying profession, but I greatly fear that we'll have to deal with these feelings."
Gamzo added that, after an agreement is signed, it will still be necessary to improve the standing of specialists with 5-10 years experience. "We have to find a way to promote them, so we won't lose them," he said.
"I am most worried about what will happen after the strike," Gamzo said, "What will the post-strike do to the doctors, their sense as doctors, love of the profession, the dedication needed, and sense of mission. My great fear is that all this will collapse, and doctors will come to work with a feeling of revenge."
Gamzo said that specialists do not consider the pending agreement as a real solution to the problem of their workload, and that a better solution to the issues of positions and shifts was required. The Ministry of Finance and the Medical Association have already agreed to limit shifts to eight per month and create 650 more positions for specialists.
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