The Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel) today declared a general labor dispute in Israel's public healthcare system - public hospitals, Clalit Health Services, and Meuhedet Health Services. The move is in response to Hadassah Medical Center's filing for liquidation with the Jerusalem District Court yesterday, which the Histadrut says is liable to break up the hospital and harm the functioning of other hospitals and healthcare funds.
"The Ministry of Finance's conduct in the matter of Hadassah has brought the entire health system to a severe crisis. It is unacceptable that the people who will ultimately pay the price for the mistakes will be the simple workers and Jerusalem's residents," said Histadrut Trade Unions Division chairman Avi Nissenkorn. "I call on the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health to solve the crisis."
In response to Hadassah's motion, deputy budget director Moshe Bar-Simantov said that the government was prepared to inject a lot of money into Hadassah, but not under the proposal demanded by the hospital's management. He said that the hospital's proposal would give it a shot in the arm for two years, but afterwards the crisis was liable to re-emerge along with demands for more government aid.
Declaration of a labor dispute allows the Histadrut to call a strike after a two week cooling off period.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 24, 2014
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2014