During one of the worst climaxes of the epidemic in the fourth wave of the Corona, the Ministry of Health has not been able for seven months to find senior doctors appointed as the two deputies to the head of public health, Dr. Sharon Elrai Price, who is considered the most important In Corona.
Public health services is the central and most important division, which plans, operates and leads the Ministry of Health and the entire health system in the fight against the epidemic.
The division is responsible for, among other things, most preventive medical services in the country, the immunization system, including vaccinations in schools, national laboratories for viruses and public health, the National Food Service, the district health bureaus responsible for epidemiological investigations and more.
A girl undergoing a corona examination, in Tel Aviv, Gideon Markovich
The health care system has high regard for Dr. Elrai Price's professional, dedicated and determined management in the fight against the global epidemic. The situation is so difficult that "I am collapsing, unable to continue working alone, it is impossible and inhuman in this situation, and I must be helped to bring in the deputies."
A senior health ministry official told Israel Today that "the burden on the head of the service is impossible, and severely undermines Israel's fight against the epidemic. "The situation is impossible and also harms very important activities that are not related to corona, such as disease prevention, vaccinations for other diseases other than corona and more."
"Substantial manpower shortage"
The severity and urgency of the problem can also be learned from a letter dated August 8 from Vered Marom, director of standardization and occupational analysis at the Ministry of Health, to Tal Regev, senior director of the Civil Service Commission. The salary offered for the position. "The public health headquarters is in significant manpower shortage and at the height of the fourth wave of the crisis," she wrote, seeking to open the education requirements in these tenders to physicians who are not public health experts. Merom also requested permission to immediately fill the positions of deputies through actual appointments.
"Israel Today" has learned that according to senior complaints in the health system, the difficulty in manning the positions of deputy head of public health services was caused, among other things, not by the Ministry of Health, but rather by difficult personal conflicts between senior civil servants - the body responsible for all appointments. Government. These conflicts have already, according to the complaints, severely impaired the ability to approve high salaries for job applicants, in order to preserve their salary levels from their previous work in the health system. It so happened that three senior managers from hospitals in the country (Kaplan in Rehovot, Wolfson in Holon and Hillel Yaffe in Hadera) have so far not agreed to be appointed to this position, as the move involved a 50% -30% reduction in their monthly salary.
The confrontation in the Civil Service Commission has been going on in recent weeks between the commissioner, Prof. Daniel Hershkovitz, and Yoni Dokan, who has been in charge of the commission's health system for the past decade.
In this context, Dokan was summoned to a pre-dismissal hearing, and the hearing letter raised many allegations against him that he "acts in a counterproductive manner, undermines the Commission's policy in many cases and attacks his colleagues and superiors."
Docken's opposition to the Commissioner's reform of salary retention for senior health officials was also noted.
Corona vaccine in Jerusalem, Oren Ben Hakon
"Direct damage to the system"
On the other hand, Advocate Ayala Honigman, who represents Docan, has serious allegations against the Commissioner and the Commission. "Twice due to the fact that it is causing fatal injury and severe damage to the department under its management, and as a result to the entire health system which is one of the most important in the public service, easy and material in these tumultuous days, where we are."
In the letter, Adv. Honigman also refers to the issue of special approvals for wage preservation in the health system, and warns that the Commissioner's changes to the health approval policy in the health system were made to abolish the special authority that had hitherto been in this matter. "Although the Commissioner is well aware that the health care system, just like the defense establishment, has been excluded from the procedure of other government ministries due to its complexity and uniqueness."
It should be noted that during the first wave of the Corona, in March 2020, Prof. Hershkovitz himself wrote to Docken that “in conversations with some hospital directors in these tumultuous days, everyone, without exception, praised the care they receive from you and your entire staff, and not even "Save the superlatives when they talk about you. Align a great force."
Israel Today also learned that the Commissioner has already been warned that changing the procedure for wage approvals will lead to damage to the health system, and to the possibility of workers moving from hospitals to the Ministry of Health headquarters.
"The subject is very complex"
The Ministry of Health responded: "The ministry works stubbornly and consistently to fill lines, including jobs related to eradicating the epidemic. No candidates have been identified for the jobs in question.
The Civil Service Commission said: "The proceedings in the case of Yoni Dokan did not begin during the current commissioner's term, but with the entry of the previous commissioner, Moshe Dayan, and continued until the end of his term. .
As for the appointment of deputies to Dr. Elrai Price, the Civil Service Commission stated that “the preservation of salaries in the transition between senior positions in the civil service and in the health system in particular, is a very complex issue.
He is handled by the Commissioner of Senior Personnel, and in coordination with the payroll commissioner in the Ministry of Finance, due to the many implications for all senior civil servants.
"The appointment in question is now in the process of another tender. He is in discussions in which Dokan also participated, and his opinion was heard. The issue will be brought to the commissioner's decision at the end of the process."