A foreign worker helps an elderly woman.
Archive (Photo: Flash 90, Kobi Gideon)
The Ministry of Finance and the Population Authority wish to impose a fee on the employment of foreign workers in nursing and geriatric institutions in the amount of approximately eight million shekels.
However, the Ministry of Health refuses to budget for this, and thus the license of 1,000 out of 1,050 workers in these institutions will be revoked at the end of the coming month.
According to the decision, from the beginning of April the institutions that employ the foreign workers will be required to pay a fee of NIS 8,000 per worker, similar to the construction and restaurant industries.
However, in this industry, there is no income from the client and the Ministry of Health budgets for the institutions.
The heads of the nursing home association are asking for the full cancellation of the fee, similar to private workers in the homes for the elderly, or alternatively asking that the Ministry of Health also budget for the payment of the fees.
This is because the institutions, which are in deficit anyway, do not have the ability to pay such a large amount.
Unfortunately for them, many managers decided to cancel the requests for new employees, and out of 70 employees who were supposed to arrive at the beginning of April, only 45 will arrive at the moment. To pass them on to the tenants like they do in other industries, because the one who finances us is the Ministry of Health," explains Yuli Gat, CEO of ABA.
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"The new fee actually increased the workers' wages by another seven shekels per hour, and no one is budgeting for it," she added.
"The institutions pay for housing and of course salaries for the employees, but we have no option to pay an additional amount if the Ministry of Health does not budget for it."
The Ministry of Health blames the Ministry of Finance for the situation.
"The fee for the foreign workers is determined by the Ministry of Finance and the Population and Immigration Authority, while the Ministry of Health has no decision-making authority," according to his response.
However, the office refused to comment on the fact that they did not budget for the tax increase.
The Ministry of Finance responded: "According to the policy of quotas for foreign workers in the State of Israel, there is no obstacle to the extension of the license on an annual basis for those workers, and this is in accordance with the payment of the required fee. In the institutional nursing sector, the established fee is initially lower than what is specified in the law and in relation to most of the other sectors in which foreign workers are employed. It should be clarified that In the home nursing industry, the direct employer is the elderly, so there is no annual fee."
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