Israel’s doctors demonstrated on Wednesday outside the Knesset while the plenum gathered for a special session.
The demonstration was announced after talks between the Israel Medical Association and the Finance Ministry ended late Tuesday night without reaching a resolution. A proposed 20-percent wage hike was only one percent higher than the ministry’s previous offer, according to the union, which turned it down.
“The public medicine in Israel is in real trouble,” said Leah Wapner, Secretary-General of the Israel Medical Association, in a conversation with INN TV. “We feel that if we don’t do something about it and change some fundamental problems that are there, the people in Israel are just not going to get the medicine that they deserve.”
Wapner noted that the protest was the largest she had ever seen, with over 4,000 doctors taking part, and emphasized that the doctors’ demands are not only about salary.
“The first and most important demand that we have is manpower,” she said. “There just aren’t enough doctors, there aren’t enough places in the hospitals and we just need more doctors to take care of the people. The other thing is the people in the periphery areas such as the north and the south don’t get the right medicine, and we think that we need to do something to get good medicine in all the areas of Israel, not only in Tel Aviv.”
A third problem, noted Wapner, is the fact that there are some areas in medicine where there are not enough doctors and more are needed. The reasons for this, she said, are doctors who go to easier professions, the private sector, or abroad.
“We also think we have to look out for the future,” she added. “The younger doctors – they just cannot continue working 26 consecutive hours, for seven or eight days every month and even much more.”
Finally, she emphasized that the doctors’ protests are more for the patients than for the doctors themselves.
“We think it’s foremost for the patients,” said Wapner. “Our motto is that we don’t think that there’s any possibility that you’ll have a system that’s wrong, that doctors are suffering and the patients are getting the proper care.”