Nurses strike after failed negotiations with Finance Ministry on hospital overcrowding; court demands that the state produce relief plan

The breakdown of recent negotiations with the Finance Ministry on relieving the distressing state of Israel's congested hospitals has led the nurses union to announce that they will no longer admit new patients to internal medicine units once they have reached 100 percent capacity.

Bed shortages in Israel's hospitals continues to be a growing issue, leading to overcrowding and impeding hospital staff's ability to provide an acceptable standard of care to admitted patients.

An OECD survey of hospital beds places Israel almost last - ahead only of Mexico - with a ratio of 1.9 beds per 1,000 people. Some 90 of the state's hospitals have been reported to be operating above capacity.

Occupancy rates in the internal medicine departments at Ashkelon’s Barzilai Medical Center, which treat mostly the elderly and those with chronic diseases, have reached 200 percent. At Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, the internal medicine units are full and the emergency department is operating at 160% occupancy.

Pediatric wards at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon are at 200% capacity, and the pediatric emergency department is also full. At Petah Tikva’s Schneider Children’s Medical Center and Haifa’s Carmel Medical Center, all beds are full, and at Emek Medical Center in Afula, the departments are almost all at 200 percent capacity. The Health Ministry has denied the hospitals' requests to refuse new admissions but has allowed an increase in shifts with additional doctors and nurses.

Bed shortages are causing patients to be placed in corridors and other areas of the hospital not designated or properly equipped for patient care. These patients, many of whom are geriatric, are forced to receive medical care in places not conducive to privacy and confidentiality standards, and in areas not sufficiently weatherproofed for the winter.

The Israeli Medical Association (IMA) conjunctively petitioned the High Court of Justice on the state's failure to add hospital beds, seeking immediate relief of 100 extra beds in intensive care units and 500 additional beds in internal medicine units within the year. 

In response, the High Court has severely criticized the government for the hospital bed shortages and has instructed it to submit a plan for the distribution of more beds by the end of February. According to state representatives, the health and finance ministries have reached an agreement to add 960 beds to the country's hospitals over the next six years but refuse to say how these beds will be distributed among hospitals.

The IMA fears that most of these beds will be distributed to maternity and preemie wards, which are profitable due to payments from the National Insurance Institute. This would leave very few beds for the overcrowded intensive care and internal medicine wards.