Doctors committees at Hadassah Medical Center, with the support of Israel Medical Association chairman Dr. Leonid Eidelman, announced on Sunday that they oppose the recovery plan submitted by the hospital's trustees to the Jerusalem District Court on Friday. Today, the doctors discussed dropping a bombshell: ending private healthcare practice altogether to protest the proposed changes in the model.
Under the agreement between Hadassah's management and the government, the hospital's share from doctors' private practice will double from the current 15% to 30%, at the senior doctors' expense. The senior doctors committee, nicknamed "the private practice committee" is seeking to use the threat to assert that they can earn more at private clinics than their peers in central Israel, and that they should be allowed freedom of occupation and that the clause requiring them to only work at Hadassah should be cancelled.
As of web-posting, the doctors' discussions were ongoing, and they have not voted on whether to exercise the threat.
The doctors submitted a petition signed by 750 of Hadassah's 1,000 doctors, stating that they will not return to work until the recovery plan is changed, even at the price of the hospital's liquidation. However, the threat is believed to be a calculated controlled explosion made a few days before the meeting of the hospital's creditors, on the assumption that changed can be made to the recovery plan. Today, Hadassah's trustees asked the court to postpone the creditors meeting from Tuesday to Thursday.
The doctors' bottom line, in particular by the Israel Medical Association, is over the clause for the firing of 30 doctors and the elimination of their positions. The Israel Medical Association says that this is a dangerous precedent that must not be allowed because of the repercussions at other hospitals in the future, especially when Israel has a shortage of doctors, and just three years after the doctors went on strike to obtain more positions, among other demands.
The doctors also claim that the recovery plan harms medical students. However, the doctors will apparently not oppose a 4.5% pay cut over three years, given that the pay cut is defined as a loan.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 11, 2014
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