Israeli medical residents delay protest resignations by one day

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Hundreds of medical interns and residents agreed on Sunday to delay submitting their resignations one more day while they wait for the government to make them a new offer reducing the length of their shifts.

“The Health Ministry promised to get back to us by this [Sunday] evening with a proposal for solving the crisis,” said their union, Mirsham.

While the resignations are now slated to be submitted at 1 P.M. on Monday, hospitals and patients won’t feel the effects immediately because the resignations will only take effect either two weeks or one month later, depending on the resident’s contract.

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Monday’s planned resignations are only the first stage of a broader collective resignation that would ultimately affect around 20 departments in hospitals around the country, Mirsham said.

The union hasn’t yet said which departments or hospitals the resignations would affect in order to avoid members coming under pressure to retract their letters. But it warned that in the departments that would be affected, more than half of residents have prepared resignation letters.

Moreover, it said, more than half of residents in a similar number of departments have already prepared resignations for the next stage of the battle.

Under a plan that was signed off on by Economy and Industry Minister Orna Barbivai two weeks ago, shifts would be cut from 26 to 18 hours in most hospital departments in the periphery by the end of the first quarter of 2022, but not in surgery, intensive care and anesthesia. The latter two would get shorter shifts by July 2023, but no date was set for surgery at all.

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Dr. Rey Biton, Mirsham’s chairwoman, said in a Facebook post that the plan was unacceptable because it wouldn’t be implemented in the center of the country, only in the periphery – and even then, not for more than a year in some cases. “What happens in the coming days will determine the future of medicine in Israel and the fate of our coming battles – the wage agreement, improving training, working conditions and more!” Biton wrote.

Medical workers walk in a protest against 26-hour hospital shiftsMoti Milrod

For the residents, submitting resignations isn’t risk-free, since none of them are guaranteed to be rehired unless whatever agreement the government and Mirsham eventually reach mandates it.

Interns and residents have fought for shorter shifts for years, but only got a response from the government two weeks ago. They have received almost no public backing from senior doctors.

A collective resignation isn’t unprecedented: Hundreds of residents resigned in 2011 to protest an agreement between the government and the Israel Medical Association they said did little to help them. The government responded by winning a restraining order from the National Labor Court, arguing that this was “a strike in disguise” rather than a true resignation.

Nevertheless, the government launched negotiations with a group of residents who didn’t belong to the IMA, which produced significant benefits for the residents in question, including an extra day of paid vacation per week, extra pay for overtime and limiting their 26-hour shifts to six per month.

Shortening shifts from 26 to 18 hours, however, is more complicated. For one thing, barring a substantial budget increase, it would require slashing residents’ salaries by around 30 percent – something the residents obviously deem unacceptable. It would also mean hiring more residents, which would require extra funding as well. But, since no state budget has yet been approved for either this year or next, extra funding doesn’t currently exist.

Medical staff at Assuta Hospital in Ashdod, this monthIlan Assayag

Around 300 interns and residents demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Sunday in support of their fight for shorter shifts, carrying signs such as “Doctors are people, too” and “We won’t give up until they’re shortened.” After gathering outside the Cinematheque, they marched toward the Azrieli Junction and briefly blocked it.

Ella, an intern who attended the demonstration, said she was debating whether to stay in medicine at all. “High-tech companies are knocking on our doors, and I have many friends who have given up medicine because of the work conditions,” she said. “It’s terrible – every shift, serious mistakes are being made. Sometimes, it depends on the patient’s family seeing the mistakes.”