Employees of Israel's publicly funded medical testing labs have been complaining about the lack of staff positions and staff shortages for years, and even more so since the onset of the coronavirus crisis.
But it seems as if the lack of manpower will only grow worse now that My Rating lab services is about to start operations in Israel. My Rating pays considerably higher salaries than labs associated with Israel's health care providers and government hospitals, and is expected to start out by processing 2,000 tests a day and increase that capacity to 10,000 tests a day.
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"My Rating, which the Health Ministry supposedly brought in to help us, will only make the staff shortages worse," warns Esther Admon, chairwoman of the Israel Association of Biochemists, Microbiologists, and Laboratory Workers.
"A lot of employees have submitted their CVs to My Rating, which pays 100 shekels an hour [$29] whereas we get 37 shekels [$10.60] an hour. When we ask employees to work on Fridays and Saturdays, they say they don't want to and prefer to go to My Rating because of the terms there. I was amazed," Admon said.
In light of the new situation, the Treasury recently approved an agreement with employees of Clalit Health Services labs according to which each lab will receive bonuses of 20 shekels for each coronavirus test it conducts. The bonuses will be divided among the employees at the end of every month, and are expected to add another 3,000 shekels [$863] to the workers' monthly salaries.
The Leumit health management organization expects to sign a similar agreement with the Treasury.
When it comes to hospital labs, the Israel Association of Biochemists, Microbiologists, and Laboratory Workers is claiming that the Treasury is making it difficult for government hospitals to reach the same agreement with the Treasury, but Israel Hayom has recently learned that similar terms are in the works for laboratories at public hospitals.
A senior official with one of Israel's HMOs said that "The lab workers deserve the bonus pay, and even a bigger bonus. These are workers who were called in on Passover Eve to process kits that had been 'stuck' at Magen David Adom, and who've been working overtime for two months."
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