Following a walkout by staff at Jerusalem's financially-troubled Bikur Holim Hospital, the Health Ministry issued a statement that "the hospital has reached a critical moment of closure or transfer [of patients] to another hospital."

The statement continued, "No [employee of an] institution can take upon himself the right to abandon medical frameworks, even if he's not receiving his salary and there is a serious withholding of wages. Therefore the executive director informed the chairman of the board and the workers' committee that the process of closure or transfer in a coordinated and gradual manner, and in no way will there be abandonment by the staff which could endanger the patients in the wards."