Doctors on Strike

With 4,000 registered physicians for 1,500,000 people, Israel is the world's most intensively doctored nation. But last week more than half its physicians were idle, most of its clinics were shut down, and only emergency cases could get medical care. What had happened was that 2,200 doctors* had gone on a three-day strike for higher pay.

Their complaints: in most countries a physician makes five to nine times as much as a manual worker, but in Israel he is lucky if he makes half as much again. Many a hospital cook with a big family takes home a fatter pay envelope than the chief of the medical staff (380 Israeli pounds, or $292, after 25 years' service).

In Israel's controlled economy, wage boosts for the doctors would mean another round of wage increases (the last were granted in 1952) for all professional people in government employ. The government, scared of a spiraling inflation, flatly refused the doctors' latest demands.

Public and press, nurtured in the tradition that "doctors don't strike," were shocked. Said the Socialist daily Davar: "The doctors' action is unprecedented and conflicts with all ethical principles of the medical profession." And nobody jumped harder on them^than Histradrut, the high temple of militant trade unionism. It suspended the doctors' trade-union membership and summoned them before its court of honor for breach of discipline.

At week's end the doctors were chipping ten pounds apiece into a defense fund and girding themselves for a do-or-die strike scheduled for June 1.

* All on salary: 400 employed by the government, 1,500 by the trade unions' Kupat Holim (sick fund), 300 by Hadassah.

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