Israel Medical Association (IMA) chairman Dr. Leonid Eidelman called on weekend Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is also health minister, to intervene urgently in the doctors’ crisis.

So far, the prime minister has allowed senior wage officials from the Treasury to negotiate, although no advances have been made in over two months of talks. Eidelman said that “for the first time in the state’s history, the state comptroller agreed that patients are dying due to the failure of the health system”.

In its chapter on the Health Ministry, the semiannual State Comptroller’s Report, released Tuesday, gave backing to IMA arguments by documenting serious physician shortages and hospital overcrowding.

Meanwhile, IMA physicians will hold a symbolic Lag Ba’omer bonfire on Sunday to declare that “doctors are unwilling to continue to put out fires” in the health system.

The massive demonstration will be held in the Reading parking lot, in northern Tel-Aviv, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The IMA has also declared a strike in all public hospitals, will be run to reduce “Shabbat schedule”, today.

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