The Nurses Union began a strike this morning after nurses held a protest at the Ministry of Health yesterday against their working conditions. Talks with Ministry of Health director general Moshe Bar-Siman-Tov ended without agreement. Hospital nurses in Israel are providing only vital and emergency services.
Earlier this week, the union said in a statement: "Nurses in Israel are not forced laborers, and will no longer lend themselves to work beyond nurses' job description and license, to tasks, procedures and checks without additional manpower and without an appropriate addition to their pay. It seems that the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance have forgotten that age of slavery is past, and have brazenly reduced nurses' pay, and so we have decided to say no to the overload and yes to patients."
Bar-Siman-Tov said at a press conference at Tel Hashomer Hospital this morning, "We sat together with the Ministry of Finance and the nurses yesterday. We are aware of the hard work that all medical staff do, and the nurses are the backbone of the system in a situation of heavy workloads. We think that this dispute can and must be resolved.
"We made many proposals yesterday that could ultimately improve nurses' working conditions. We will deal with the shortcomings of the health system and with the budgetary needs, but unfortunately we will have to go to the Labor Court."
Bar-Siman-Tov added that the nurses' claim that their pay had been reduced was correct, but said that this was because they had not fulfilled their assignments in the standards accreditation process that had recently taken place in the hospitals. This in fact was one of the reasons for the strike.
On the nurses' demand for an additional 1,500 job slots in the system, Bar-Siman-Tov said, "We are in an election period, and this is not the time for demands such as this. We need to be given time to try to reconstruct the achievement we almost reached before the government was dissolved, which was a substantial budget increase that included extra job slots.
"If we carry on and reach understandings with the nurses, we are certainly prepared to consider ending the pay reduction. It occurred because we cannot accept a situation in which workers decide which tasks they will perform and which not. We want to do everything possible to avoid a pay cut, but we cannot accept the situation that has arisen."
Asked buy "Globes" what proposals had been put forward in the negotiations, Bar-Siman-Tov said, "We offered to enter into a process of identifying tasks that can be taken off the nurses immediately."
Deputy Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman said, "The nurses undoubtedly do holy work, but from that to a strike is a long way. Perhaps the new Histadrut chairman is instigating a strike. We need to deal with the matter through negotiations.
"As for the election, the health system is an election issue. Where are all the parties that talked about health? Today it's an unmentionable subject. Where are they all? Suddenly no-one want to be health minister. I take responsibility. We have to make improvements."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 23, 2019
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