In the coming days and almost three weeks late, the first interim report of the implementation committee for the internship shortening program will be submitted. Its conclusions will be different and limited compared to the original outline presented by Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz. On Saturday evening, about 100 members of the organization are expected to demonstrate again in front of the home of the Minister of Health in Tel Aviv.
Another similar matter
The interns define the interim report whose details were leaked to them: “Horowitz declares war on the interns” and also that this is a “poor shortcut” that will leave more than 95% of the interns this year outside the outline declared. This was reported this morning (Thursday) by Roni Linder B. The Marker”.
The promise to shorten the shifts was given by the Minister of Health on October 20, 2021 after hundreds of interns submitted letters of resignation in protest of “smashing the previous promise to shorten the shifts.” According to the outline, which was solemnly declared by the Minister, the shortening of shifts will be from 26 hours to 18 hours and will begin in 10 hospitals in the periphery this coming April in all departments except surgery, intensive care and anesthesia. As of November 2022, the move will be extended to the internal medicine departments and emergency rooms at two hospitals in the center of the country. In March 2023, the shifts in all boarding schools and emergency rooms in all hospitals will be shortened, and by the end of 2025, the shifts of all interns will be shortened.
Three key factors make it difficult to implement the ambitious plan, according to the report: The “battle” between the Ministries of Finance and Health over money and standards: The outline for shortening shifts will be budgeted by an additional 90 standards, but by all accounts The Ministry of Finance is in no hurry to provide additional standards, and among its requirements is the transfer of planning of the specialization map from the Ministry of Health to the Ministry of Health. “But this is a politically explosive requirement,” Linder notes.
Another factor that makes it difficult to implement the move is the fact that there are not enough doctors, and in the periphery quite a few standards are not staffed, especially in the less popular medical professions to specialize. A reform concerning medical studies abroad is also expected to lead to a decrease in the number of new doctors, with an emphasis on the periphery and to exacerbate the shortage.
The “prescription” claims that the struggle is also around the demand to start shortening the shifts and immediately also in two hospitals in the center of the country and that one should not accept the idea that the periphery is the pilot in the program. The Ministry of Health believes that “the addition of standards for shortening shifts in the center of the country from the very first stage could be a major blow to the periphery, since the hospitals in it are already having difficulty recruiting interns.”
Additional difficulties are posed by some of the doctors’ unions in the Hari, many of whose senior members oppose the very shortening of the shifts;
In any case, this state of emergency is already creating a real and important movement that has not existed for years: re-examining the syllabus of specializations to optimize them; Examining the addition of physician assistants to relieve congestion; Examining structural changes in the field of specialization map; And a sense of urgency in the context of increasing the number of doctors in the State of Israel – the fundamental problem from which everything is derived, “Linder concludes.