Nurses around the country began a strike on Monday at 7 AM, after a meeting between the Finance Ministry and the nurses’ union failed to reach an agreement concerning an ongoing labor dispute on Sunday.
The strike includes all hospitals, the Meuhedet and Clalit HMOs, student health services and “Tipat Halav” (Family Health Centers). Nurses will work according to a reduced schedule similar to that used on Saturday, except for in coronavirus wards and coronavirus testing centers which will remain fully staffed.
The meeting took place on Sunday at the Finance Ministry between director-general Keren Terner Eyal and other ministry officials and chairwoman of the nurses’ union Ilana Cohen.
According to an announcement by the union, the discussion dealt with “the severe shortages and impossible loads placed on the shoulders of nurses.”
The nurses demanded hundreds of new shifts, warning that the manpower shortage would lead to a collapse of the health system and cost lives, according to KAN news.
Cohen told KAN Reshet Bet radio on Monday that there are enough certified nurses in Israel in order to make more shifts and stop the health system from collapsing, adding that nurses deserve a raise.During the meeting on Sunday, the Finance Ministry only offered the nurses the option of adding temporary shifts that would be removed next year. “They think we are suckers,” said Cohen, stressing that a raise was not discussed at the meeting on Sunday.”The nurses are collapsing. The collapse did not start during the time of the coronavirus but long before,” said Cohen to KAN Reshet Bet. “40 corona wards were opened – where do you think they took the shifts from?”
On Sunday, Cohen told The Jerusalem Post‘s sister publication Maariv that “the Finance Ministry had a full year to end the nurses’ crisis. If they would place human life at the top of the order of priorities, act responsibly and assign the hundreds of standards required for nurses in hospitals, the community and public health, we would have arrived prepared and ready to deal with the epidemic, including the epidemiological investigation system.”
“In the Finance Ministry, they must change their view and immediately stop the abandonment of the nurses, the abandonment of the health of the treating staff and the abandonment of the patients – Israeli citizens,” added Cohen on Sunday.
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