ISRAEL: Hundreds of medical residents walk off jobs at hospitals

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REPORTING FROM JERUSALEM -- Several hundred resident physicians resigned and didn't show up for work at Israeli hospitals Monday, the latest development in a labor dispute that threatens to undermine the country's public medical services and put patients' lives at risk.

Hospitals announced that they were switching to emergency mode, providing lifesaving and urgent procedures but suspending most non-critical care. Within hours, staff shortages started bogging down service in emergency rooms.

"This is an hour of despair," Dr. Oren Feldman, a resident at Haifa's Rambam Medical Center, said at a news conference. "The future of public medicine is at stake."

The situation constitutes a deep crisis "on the same scale as a war," Dr. Eitan Hai-Am, former director general of the Health Ministry, said in a radio interview. "Without the residents, we are lost."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2011/10/israel-residents-resign-public-health-crisis.html