Court orders striking Hadassah doctors back to work
Other public hospitals remain on weekend footing to protest Finance Ministry reforms; late-night talks between doctors, Treasury break down
The Jerusalem Regional Labor Court on Thursday ordered striking doctors and health workers at the Hadassah Medical Center back to work, hours after the countrywide hospital strike protesting the proposed government reforms came into effect.
In the early-morning decision, the court issued a staying order that all medical staff at Hadassah’s two university hospitals — in Ein Kerem and on Mount Scopus — resume work at 10 a.m. Thursday.
The ruling came in response to an injunction filed late Wednesday night by Hadassah’s Director General Professor Ze’ev Rothstein, who urged the court to prevent the strike — which put hospitals on weekend footing — from affecting patient care.
Rothstein in a statement thanked the court for preventing “unjustified harm” to patients, and said the Hadassah administration would “continue to help reach an agreement between the doctors’ union and the government.”
The strike at other state-owned hospitals nationwide was scheduled to continue for 24 hours, with some medical centers warning it may be extended until Sunday.
Overnight Wednesday, the Israeli Medical Association announced that state-owned hospitals — including mental, psychiatric, geriatric and rehabilitation facilities — would operate on a limited basis after late-night talks between the doctors’ union and Finance Ministry representatives in Jerusalem over demanded reforms failed to produce results.
The labor action was expected to create long lines at hospitals, and elective surgeries were canceled. Patients seeking non-urgent care were urged to push off appointments or turn to HMOs for treatment.
Leonid Edelman, the head of the Israeli Medical Association, said Wednesday the doctors are seeking changes that will reduce waiting times for patients in hospitals, allow doctors more break time during their shifts, and prevent a move planned by Health Minister Yaakov Litzman to levy fines on hospital administrators who go over budget.
“Our fight is not over salaries, our fight is over investment in the health system, over bringing in new doctors, standards for doctors and cutting waiting periods,” Edelman said.
Some critics, however — including government officials and fellow health professionals — have accused the union of pursuing an unnecessary strike in a show of strength that will hurt patients.
The Health Ministry accused Edelman of changing his demands from two weeks ago, when the union first threatened to strike. At the time, Edelman said the move was over the right of department heads to also maintain private practices.
“It seems to us that the doctors’ union has decided to strike just for the sake of striking. Two weeks ago they claimed that it was over department heads, now they claim that it is over shortening lines and adding standards,” a senior source in the ministry said, according to Ynet.
Health Minister Yaakov Litzman was more direct. “This is a pointless strike, without a real reason, that won’t bring any benefit to the patients or the health system,” he said in a Thursday morning statement.
“The Health Ministry is conducting intensive engagement with the Finance Ministry in order to bolster the public health system with additional beds, manpower and more resources, alongside many other steps we are taking for the benefit of patients, doctors and the system as a whole,” he added.
“The central fear of the doctors that the private work of department heads will be curtailed is no longer relevant, because the article relating to this issue was removed from the Appropriations Law,” continued Litzman.
He concluded: “It’s hard not to feel that this strike is motivated by something other than concern for the public good.”
A report on the Ynet news website said the talks are due to resume next week.
