The partial strike by seven of Israel’s hospitals, including Jerusalem’s only two emergency medical centers, is expected to continue Thursday, as no additional funds were transferred to the country’s independent hospitals.
“The Shabbat format in hospitals will continue tomorrow,” the hospital directors said in a statement. “The Finance and Health ministries have issued a letter full of nice words, but with sympathy we cannot pay suppliers and employees.
“The health minister is in charge of the health system, and the finance minister in charge of the Treasury, and we demand that they abide by the agreements and resolve the crisis immediately,” they said.
The statement was referring to a letter sent by the ministries to the hospitals today, thanking them for their services and informing them that they were working on rectifying the situation as soon as possible.
Seven Israeli hospitals, including Jerusalem’s only two emergency medical centers, launched a partial strike on Wednesday over some NIS 300 million that they are owed by the government.
Specifically, the hospitals are still providing for emergency and lifesaving needs, but are operating on “Shabbat mode,” meaning that they are turning away those who were scheduled for nonurgent elective surgeries and visitors to their outpatient clinics.
“Nonurgent patients will have to seek care in Tel Aviv,” Prof. Jonathan Halevy, president of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, told The Jerusalem Post.
The harsh statement by the hospital heads came just hours after it appeared that the situation could be solved.
On Wednesday morning, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz tweeted that “representatives of the Health and Finance ministries have been holding marathon discussions for two days to resolve the crisis. Agreements are required and can be reached by the end of the day.”
At the same time, a person close to the crisis said that Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash had called the head of one of the hospitals and informed him that he is working on it and it will be resolved.
“I don’t think the government would allow Jerusalem to be deprived of nonurgent care for more than a day or two,” Halevy said Wednesday morning.
However, until the money owed to the hospitals is in the bank, they have said, they will not resume full operation. And so far, no money has been transferred.
Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman blamed the Health Ministry in a closed-door briefing Wednesday afternoon, saying that the money had been transferred to it from his ministry but had not been passed on to the hospitals.
“I think the problem is that we cannot give the money directly to the hospitals,” he said.
The hospitals, which include Hadassah-University Medical Center, Shaare Zedek, Mayanei HaYeshua Medical Center, Laniado Medical Center and three small hospitals in Nazareth, shared photos of empty parking lots and hallways.
Emergency rooms, which normally were crowded with patients, were almost empty, as the hospitals asked Magen David Adom to reroute patients elsewhere when there is a choice.
The strike is over some NIS 630m. that was promised to the seven hospitals between January and June, of which they received only NIS 400m. The hospitals were also supposed to receive an additional NIS 55m. per month in July and August, and that money has not been transferred either.
These are what are known as “independent hospitals,” meaning they are not owned by the government or one of the health funds.
Shaare Zedek, for example, was founded in 1873 and is owned by its board of directors. Hadassah was founded in 1912 and is run by Hadassah Women’s Zionist Organization of America.
The hospitals have largely managed until now, but the coronavirus crisis pushed all of the hospitals into an even greater deficit, one that Halevy described as “an impossible situation.”
The deficits of the public hospitals were covered by the government.
At the end of last year, the government signed an agreement to transfer needed funds to the hospitals, which are mostly for paying suppliers. Otherwise, they said that operations cannot be maintained and adequate care cannot be given to patients.
For example, Shaare Zedek is a major heart center. Halevy said it performs 20 to 25 catheterizations per day. Each catheter costs $1,000 to $3,000. “We don’t have money to pay suppliers to buy them.”
“Unfortunately, we reached the redline,” Shaare Zedek Director-General Ofer Merin said. “In the reddest cities in the last year, today there are no medical services. Thousands of patients received cancellation notices, surgeries and treatments were canceled – and all due to government opacity and noncompliance with agreements.
“We will not compromise on the quality of medicine and the services that our patients deserve,” he continued. “The Health Ministry must resolve this crisis.”