Video: Tel Hashomer Hospital calls for strike (documentation on social networks according to section 27A of the Copyright Law)
Many parents of children with special needs reacted with great concern Monday to the threat of caregivers to go on strike on September 1 if their salary does not rise to NIS 8,000 a month. The letter published by the caregivers is signed by many organizations, which treat about 20,22 people.
Hagit Katzir of Petach Tikva, whose <>-year-old son Evyatar is soon completing a special education framework, has been preparing him for months to move to an ALUT employment center. Now she fears that everything will go wrong. "My son is used to a daily routine at school, and we have been preparing him for a long time for an employment center, on a social, cognitive and emotional level," she tells Walla!. "For my son to stay home after all this preparation - it's just a disaster. He won't be able to handle it. It would be a fatal blow to his functioning. We may see seclusion and a decline in his functioning and mood."
Akim Day Center in Modi'in (Photo: official website, AKIM Spokesperson's Office)
"I'm very nervous about the strike, because if Evyatar doesn't start the day center in September, we'll have a big problem," she adds, but clarifies that she understands the caregivers: "They get paid little for hard and meaningful work. They need to earn a decent wage, no one gets richer than that either. As far as we're concerned, they're at the forefront."
Roni Zvik from Haifa, a father of 42-year-old Moran who struggles with a developmental disorder, is also worried about September 1. "Change for her is something very difficult. Every change of instructor is a huge difficulty, and they change all the time because they are not paid a proper salary," he shares. "Until you understand it, the therapist or counselor takes turns. It's not easy for her to connect with people."
Zvik also clarifies that as far as he is concerned, the caregivers' step is a last resort, before the system completely collapses. "We have been in an ongoing disaster for a long time, we are approaching a 50% shortage of instructors. It's not volunteering, they have to support a family," he says. "We don't want to get to the point where we get instructors who don't fit, and we're still there. They don't pay attention to the weakest people in society, what kind of country have we become? The parents of these children can't block Kaplan because they're busy surviving and they just can't do it."
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Long-term care workers threaten strike: '20,<> people with disabilities will stay at home'
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AKIM caregiver and camper. "Special hard work that needs to be rewarded" (Photo: official website, Noa Eisenman)
Ronit Avraham, chairman of AKIM Ness Ziona, whose 30-year-old son is at a nursing day center, has to leave work several times a day to change his diaper, because there is no manpower to do it. "Someone needs to wake up and realize that there is no way to find people who will work for these sums. It's hard and special work and they need to be rewarded properly. Right now the reward is humiliating," she advocates for the caregivers. "The strike is not the one that will hurt us, we are already hurt. There is no choice - we must go on strike. People seem to listen, but do nothing about it."
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