Hospital staff stage 2-hour strike against overhaul bill, warn of wider action

Healthcare staff staged a two-hour strike Wednesday morning and held rallies outside hospitals to protest the legislative push to curb judicial oversight of the government.

The Israeli Medical Association (IMA) held the “warning strike” from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., threatening further action if the legislation — part of a wider, deeply divisive plan to overhaul the judiciary — isn’t halted.

IMA officials have warned of further action, with a former head of the association, Zeev Feldman, saying that “if needed, it could escalate into a full strike in the healthcare system.”

The coalition plans to finalize into law next week a contentious bill to prevent courts from using the test of “reasonableness” in evaluating decisions made by the cabinet and ministers.

Demonstrations with Israeli flags and pro-democracy banners and chants were held by dozens of staff members outside Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Beilinson hospital in Petah Tikva, Assuta Hospital in Ashdod and elsewhere around the country, particularly in Tel Aviv.

“The doctors’ protest today represents the unequivocal position that the legislation will harm the Israeli healthcare system,” said Dr. Tal Brosh, head of Assuta’s infectious diseases unit. “The IMA has over the years monitored the Health Ministry and its actions, and almost always managed to promote the healthcare system [via appeals to the courts] while using the reasonableness doctrine.”

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The IMA attempted to avoid negatively impacting patients’ care during the strike, according to its Tuesday statement announcing it. Urgent care services were not curtailed, and critical services such as oncology, dialysis, IVF, delivery rooms and scans for pregnant women were not affected. Surgeries and procedures beginning or scheduled for before 8:30 a.m. took place as planned, and many others were moved to later in the day rather than being canceled.

Feldman, the former IMA chief and the chair of the Government-Employed Physicians Organization, told Radio 103FM that while his goal was to avoid more large-scale strikes, “we believe our action today will prevent harm to patients, and we are helping patients today so that we can continue to be at their side and ensure a healthcare system that works in accordance with the principles of justice, equality and mutual care — abilities that will be critically harmed if this legislation passes.”

Organizations representing medical residents and nurses were also taking part in the protests, while some medics and mental health officers in the active IDF reserves were set to submit letters Wednesday threatening to refuse to appear for duty if the reasonableness bill advances.

In the country’s four health maintenance organizations, the strike was partial since two of them had announced staff wouldn’t be paid for the hours they were absent.

Health Minister Moshe Arbel criticized the strike, saying at a Health Ministry conference Wednesday that “the public healthcare system must not become involved in the political divisiveness.

“The protests should be held outside or in the streets, but not inside the hospitals and not at the expense of patients’ health,” Arbel said, adding that it was neverthess “important and appropriate to enable criticism of the government.”

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The IMA issued a position paper on Tuesday afternoon outlining how it believes the elimination of the judicial reasonableness test would impact the healthcare system and the rights of patients.

The paper stated that without judicial review, the National Health Insurance Law could be implemented in an unreasonable or inequitable manner, hurt a person’s ability to receive medical treatment, impact the updating of drugs and treatments covered by nationalized health insurance, and impact budgeting and the ability for individuals to receive lifesaving drugs and care.

The government would have complete and final say in the allocation of the healthcare budget, without regard for possible resultant injury to patients, the IMA claimed.

“Without judicial review, it would also be impossible to appeal to the courts on priorities concerning the government’s healthcare allocations and the injury to patients due to the government’s allocation preferences,” the paper said.

Such decisions could be made by government ministers who could make “unworthy, unprofessional and political” appointments, which would be impossible to contest through the judicial system.

The IMA also warned that without the judicial test of reasonableness, it would be impossible to appeal to the courts concerning the privatization of medicine and the quality of care provided by private entities on behalf of the government.

It also said that the cancellation or curtailing of reasonableness could lead to an erosion of the quality of training of medical staff and licensing demands, thus endangering the health and safety of patients.

In contrast, a group of doctors calling themselves the Sane Physicians Forum announced Tuesday that it was opposed to any strike and apologized to the public for what it characterized as “a small and vocal group of our colleagues acting scandalously… and based on disinformation,” according to Doctors Only, a Hebrew-language news site for the Israeli medical community.

In a WhatsApp statement, it said: “We, hundreds of doctors — most of us IMA members, and some who left it when it began to take a political position — regard with sorrow and shock the threats of IMA leadership to strike and disable the health system.”

“We call for the complete separation of political opinion from professional practice,” the forum said.

Renee Ghert-Zand contributed to this report.