Hospital chief warns medical residents he’ll fire them for threatening to resign

The director of the Rambam Medical Center told dozens of medical residents who are threatening to resign that he will fire them if they don’t walk back their ultimatum, Channel 12 reported on Sunday.

Last week, 200 medical residents across the country submitted their letters of resignation due to a long-running dispute with the Health Ministry over lengthy shift hours. The resignations only take effect two weeks after the letters are handed to an employer, giving the Health Ministry a further 14 days to try and prevent the mass exodus of trainee doctors.

There were 25 residents at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa who handed in their resignations, but director Michael Halberthal called them to a meeting on Sunday to warn them that they have two days to retract their letters or he will fire them himself, according to the report.

He also told them that even if a proposed framework to reduce shift hours is put into practice next year, it will take some time until it can be applied in the hospital.

Some of the residents were said to leave the meeting in tears, and 11 reportedly retracted their letters following Halberthal’s comments.

Outside the hospital, some 250 people gathered to demonstrate in support of the residents.

כמה עוצמות. כמה אומץ. להפגנה שהתקיימה היום מול בית החולים רמב״ם, הגיעו כולם – מתמחים, סטאז׳רים, סטודנטים, מטופלים, הורים וחברי כנסת. אף אחד מהם לא היה מוכן לשתוק לאור ההתנהלות של מנהלי בית החולים, שמהלכים אימים על המתמחים שהתפטרו במחאה על התורנויות של ה-26 שעות. pic.twitter.com/zubTTa8q98

— Asaf Oren (@Asaf__Oren) August 28, 2022

While the government had originally agreed to shorten shifts by April this year, a July announcement said that the change would be pushed off until September 2023, citing procedural problems caused by the upcoming elections.

The Mirsham organization, which represents medical residents in Israel, said in a press conference on Thursday that around 200 residents were submitting resignation letters in a first round, with many more to come if the crisis is not solved.

Economy Minister Orna Barbivai told Ynet on Sunday that she backs doctors’ demands to reduce their hours — which is why she approved the new framework — but she has no choice but to delay it because of the November 1 elections. Barbivai noted that the attorney-general also said it will not be possible to make the necessary changes in regulations during the election period.

Implementing the framework will require approving more doctor positions nationwide — something which requires changes in regulations that can’t be made while the Knesset is in recess.

Jonathan Halevy, president of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, told Radio 103FM on Sunday that everyone agrees the shifts need to be shortened and that working 26 hours “is completely unacceptable.”

However, he claimed that while the Mirsham organization has around 1,000 members, there are another 7,500 residents in the Israel Medical Association who support a plan to begin shortening shifts first in periphery medical centers, and only starting next year.

Halevy pointed out that in order to shorten doctors’ shifts, hundreds more positions must be opened in hospitals, and staff hired to fill them, all of which takes time, making it impossible to shorten shifts as quickly as the residents are demanding.

In addition, he said that those who choose to become doctors in hospitals or surgeons know that they will be required to work the long shifts to get where they want to be.

“For many years that is how doctors were qualified,” he noted.

Trainee doctors are currently required to work 26-hour shifts, but have been lobbying for that to be decreased to 16-18 hours, claiming that their inability to concentrate for such an extended period of time without rest endangers both the medical professionals and patients.

According to a report in the Ynet news outlet, in addition to the 200 residents who handed in their resignations Thursday, a further 300 residents also signed letters of resignation and are threatening to hand them in if the Health Ministry doesn’t shorten the shifts.

Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz has backed the protesting residents and placed the blame squarely on the Finance Ministry, saying “the Health Ministry supports the shortening of shifts” and insisting that the “budget is in place” to do so.

Last October, thousands of residents resigned in protest of the 26-hour shifts they are expected to work. The government then proposed a plan under which the shifts at 10 hospitals in outlying areas, outside the center of the country, would be shortened to 16-18 hours. It was to begin on April 1.

Until 2000, residents worked 36-hour shifts and sometimes more. That year, an agreement was signed to reduce the shifts to 26 hours with a two-hour break.

In 2012, following appeals to reduce the hours again, the government limited residents to two shifts a week, and said they could not work more than 71.5 hours in a week. But despite the new regulations, most hospitals have not implemented them.