Israel's healthcare system will be reinforced with 2,000 nurses and 400 physicians in the growing efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and Finance Minister Israel Katz decided Monday, effectively ending a nationwide nurses' strike that began earlier in the day.
"Health is above everything," Edelstein said in a statement. "A system that has been neglected is receiving today an investment it rightly deserves. We have opened a new page that will move the health system forward."
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The National Association of Nurses has complained for months that the lack of personnel and other resources has left them vulnerable to infection with more than "1,000 staff in quarantine and counting."
Katz said that "there won't be a physician or nurse that is unavailable to work at this hour due to a lack of budget."
In addition, the ministers agreed to add quotas for 700 administrative and health workers who will be assigned to the coronavirus wards in hospitals.
The imminent increase in labor is equivalent to an eight-year recruitment program, the statement read, and is aimed at meeting the coronavirus challenges today and in the winter.
Alongside the addition in manpower, the Health Ministry said it will conduct 60,000 tests per day during the winter.
National Association of Nurses President Ilana Cohen told Kan 11 News on Sunday that the Finance Ministry "should understand that the shortage [of nurses] didn't start with the corona pandemic. The Treasury has to find a way to resolve the situation."
Finance Ministry Director-General Keren Terner-Eyal had met with Cohen on Sunday but they were unable to come to an agreement.
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