The Finance Ministry said there are not enough physicians available to quickly shorten their workloads and did not agree to allocate large sums to pay for more.
Although the Health Ministry promised last October to speed up the implementation of a plan to shorten shifts for hospital residents from 26 to 18 hours, it has again been delayed until September 2023 – to the chagrin of thousands of young doctors who are members of the Mirsham organization.
The government’s announcement on Sunday infuriated the doctors, who had received promises last fall of urgent implementation after more than 2,500 resigned and ultimately returned to work. The Finance Ministry has been saying all along that there are not enough hospital physicians available to quickly shorten their workloads and did not agree to allocate large sums to pay for more.
Lackluster implementation
The plan to gradually shorten shifts was supposed to take effect months ago in only 10 hospitals in the periphery of the country, but implementation around the country was vague, and residents in big-city hospitals in the center of the country protested that they were being excluded.
The government had promised last year that after the pilot program in the 10 hospitals in the periphery were implemented, it would include all medical centers if a committee was established to look into the problem could ensure that medical care would not deteriorate and if Finance Ministry money would be allocated.
Hospital residents’ shifts used to be even longer over two decades ago, when they remained on the job 36 hours at a time. Many studies have shown that long shifts reduce the quality of medical practice and even introduced the risk of road accidents among doctors driving home.
The Health Ministry said the decision to postpone implementation was that of Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara.