Workers' protest against the backdrop of the Health Ministry's signing of agreements with a Chinese company and research institutes • "We've never been a bottleneck"

• Corona testing

  Photo:

  Jonathan Saul

The workers' protest comes on the back of reports of a decrease in laboratory tests during the holiday and weekend, up to about 5,000 laboratory tests a day during the holidays. The workers' protest is also being made against the backdrop of the Health Ministry's agreement with a Chinese company and research institutes to increase tests by 1,000 at initial stage per day and up to 10,000 at a later date. This is when hospital labs do not use their full potential.

Samuel Buchris

"We do not cancel. Do the job quietly," writes Moshe Levy, a laboratory worker at Soroka Hospital in a public letter to Facebook to decision makers, "It's time to tell the truth and everyone will hear: We lab workers and workers have never been" bottleneck ", never waited here Sampling more than a few minutes before we stormed her and put her into work, and that is despite the lack of standards, poor wages, and the family that lives in the house ... everything is moving aside. With Israel first and foremost. We know we work far less than we can. "

It was only last weekend that a 24/7 work agreement was signed with hospital lab workers. Now, Levi writes on behalf of the lab workers: "We are lab workers and workers are asking the Ministry of Health and the State of Israel to let us work. Work day and night without interruption. We can give 30,000 answers a day now ... let us check! We want to work to give results to my daughter Fathers, work to free the economy from the closure. "

Levi protested the engagement with private entities: "Right now, the answer we get is that" there is no need "- when civilian (incidentally) recruits are recruited to do the tests. Stop playing in our health. Stop risking the home.

Against this backdrop, Esther Edmon, Chairman of the Laboratory of Laborers' Organization, contacted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last night and wrote to him: "The existing medical laboratories are capable of performing 30,000 tests a day to identify the corona virus. It is surprising and surprising that the Ministry of Health finds it expedient to expand the testing cycle through short-term vision and future planning, by contacting non-health care bodies as defined by law, with high financial investment intended for short-term, one-time use. It makes much more sense to invest in existing laboratories for the benefit of public health these days and for the future. "

On Friday, only 5940 lab tests were conducted, on Passover 5521 and on Passover 5570. And there is urgency in their review as soon as possible.

However, by the end of last week the Ministry of Health had already reached a target of 9000 and even 9900 laboratory tests.

The attempt to increase the number of laboratory tests has repeatedly encountered different "bottlenecks". Initially the shortage of rags, and now the shortage of reagents - materials used to produce the test. In the shortages, new materials were purchased and now the laboratories are working alternately to make "version updates" and adapt to the new materials.