Middle East Monitor / July 18, 2023
Medical staff, including doctors, in Israel’s public hospitals and clinics plan to go on strike this week in protest at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, local media reported on Monday.
The head of the Israeli Medical Association, Professor Zion Hagay, told Channel 12 TV that the public health union is prepared to work only in “emergency mode” for a few hours this week. The IMA represents about 95 per cent of physicians in Israel. It has not yet decided the exact date of the strike, which will depend on the schedule of the legislative process in the Knesset.
According to the Times of Israel, the coalition is advancing legislation to prevent courts from using the test of “reasonableness” in evaluating decisions made by the cabinet and ministers. Hagay said that the controversial bill “will devastate the healthcare system and is not just a theoretical concern.”
Last Thursday, reported Channel 12 TV, over 1,000 doctors sent a letter to Hagay urging him to declare a strike until the “complete trashing of the overhaul.” The signatories said that the plans will damage “the quality of medicine in Israel, will harm patients and undermine the great achievements of Israeli medicine.”
Many doctors wearing medical uniform took part in a “day of resistance” last Tuesday. The White Coats, a group of Israeli doctors opposed to Netanyahu’s policies, reported that about five per cent of the doctors at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv were absent from work on that day.
