The first day of the warning strike (Tuesday 5th April 2011) in hospitals and community health clinics has ended. During the day, staff at the IMA managed to maintain ongoing contact with the heads of committees in hospitals and HMOs, as well as with community physicians who were faced with questions and requests for clarifications. The public and patients turned to the IMA for information and assistance with troubleshooting.
The IMA experienced excellent cooperation from the professional societies, doctors and public hospitals and despite the difficulties encountered during the strike, the justification for the doctors' struggle was recognized.
Throughout the day, support teams visited various hospitals, including the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center, Shaare Zedek, Hadassah-Ein Kerem and Hadassah Mount Scopus. We have still not reached a solution to the disputes and yesterday (5.4) IMA representatives attended a negotiating session at the Ministry of Finance. Unfortunately, even this meeting ended without any progress; the Treasury and the employers repeated their offer to transfer the dispute to arbitration that would exclude several issues that are on the agenda of the IMA struggle.
The IMA repeated its position that it is not prepared to have arbitration with prior exclusions to acute issues such as private medical services and physician positions, and certainly not with a predefined cost framework, without giving flexibility to the arbitrator. In addition the IMA resents the arbitration proposal 8 months after the start of negotiations and after the Treasury stated its position that the previous arbitration agreement is invalid.
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