Instability, overhaul push thousands of Israeli doctors out

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Al Mayadeen
2 Aug 2023 17:52
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Israeli doctors are contemplating leaving at unprecedented levels due to growing dissent against judicial reforms in the settler society.

An Israeli military paramedic prepares a syringe on January 7, 2021 (AP)

Dissent, division, and turmoil in Israeli settler society against the judicial overhaul have been steadily growing more robust and bleeding into different spheres, most importantly the healthcare sector.

The sense of instability among Israeli doctors has led many of them to contemplate leaving "Israel", according to Israeli media.

The number of Israeli doctors trying to leave has reached unprecedented levels, which Israeli media has cited as evidence of the general mood of anxiety and instability.

"The doctors' pursuit of a foreign passport saddens me. The true meaning of seeking a foreign passport is that they do not believe that this entity, called the State of Israel, will remain," an Israeli journalist wrote in "Israel" Hayom.

The health affairs correspondent for Haaretz newspaper said many health practitioners have opted to leave ever since the "Reasonableness Law" was repealed. They reported that Israelis working in the field of medicine abroad have been flooded with requests from their counterparts inside "Israel" asking for help to leave.

Professor Naftali Kaminsky, Director of the Department of Pulmonary and Intensive Care Medicine at Yale University in the United States, explained to the Haaretz healthcare correspondent that requests come from both young and old doctors in "Israel", asking him to help them secure work abroad. Some were so desperate to relocate from "Israel" that they told Kaminsky they'd work for free.

Many of them expressed their willingness to leave immediately: accepting lower salaries, harsher conditions of employment, or even a downgrade in their status and responsibilities.

Another Israeli doctor based in New York received requests from Israelis from within, as Professor Erez Nosk, a senior physician in the Department of Neurosurgery and Brain at the University Hospital, said those who are addressing him are senior doctors.

He said many are urgent about their requests for leaving. One of the doctors who had communicated with him has a son who would be conscripted soon, and they're not ready for him to serve in the IOF.

Dorit Nitzan, who occupies the position of regional director of emergencies at the World Health Organization, said she received 200 requests from Israeli doctors for work in the WHO after the Reasonableness Law use by courts was limited.

She recounts how she was unable to respond to the requests of such large numbers, so she decided to gather them in a meeting on Zoom to explain the process to them.

Nitzan adds that she knows of two WhatsApp groups dedicated to assisting Israeli doctors in their "relocation" as she put it and assumes that there are other groups that she does not know of, confirming that "one of the groups includes 1999 members, while the other includes 973."