BGU | MY PATH, Haim Doron, MD

During the difficult period when the Federation faced serious membership retention problems, some people in the Federation sought to pin the blame on Clalit. I can’t forget how at the dedication of Clalit clinic in Katzrin on the Golan Heights, the head of Katzrin’s local council presented me with a framed photo of the ancient synagogue found by archeologists at the site. This brought down on me the rage of the Federation’s chair: How could it be that Clalit and I were the focus and recipient of such a gesture of appreciation for our endeavors, and there was no mention of him and the Federation?! When I convinced Irving Schneider to donate the money, so generously, to establish a children’s hospital, I receive an angry telephone call from the chair of the Federation accusing me of dealing a blow to the Federation via this initiative as if it came at the expense of the Federation’s own donor campaign. Following this telephone call, the chair of the Federation initiated a string of meetings, both of the Federation and of Clalit, in which he personally participated. The object of the gatherings? To point out real and imagined flaws in Clalit as the primary reason for so many members abandoning the Federation. Up to 1977, in Clalit’s annual negotiations with the Ministry of Finance, there were distinct advantages in the linkage between Clalit and the Federation. The Ministry of Finance could exhibit more flexibility vis-a-vis Clalit’s needs and requests in expectation that the Federation would be more flexible in its demands for cost of living increases for workers, and so forth. But after the Labor Party fell from power in 1977, relations with the Ministry of Finance changed. At first, in the days of Minister of Finance Simcha Erlich, relations were more positive. But after a short time, particularly during the tenure of Yigal Horowitz, the relations were marked by opposition and extreme clashes that made negotiation nearly impossible. Clalit became a political football, caught at a time of economic chaos between the Labor Party’s remaining power base, the Federation, and the Begin government. Besides differences in personality and party affiliation -- Erlich from the Liberal Party, Horowitz from the Likud -- the transition in the Begin years from a closed centralist, socialist economy to an open liberal market economy, led to deterioration of the balance of payments. This was fueled by a mass increase in importation of goods and a sharp rise in inflation that under Horowitz became hyperinflation, an annual 444 percent rate. At the same time, wages were automatically tied to the cost of living. One fed the other as the economy spinned out of control. In terms of wages, there is an incident that demonstrates the limitations that arose largely from Clalit’s ties to the Federation, particularly in the period of regime change. Around that time, Federation general-secretary, Yisrael Kessar, had agreed with Likud’s Minister of Finance, Moshe Nissim, not to raise the wages of Clalit doctors. But, in the hospitals, as well as in clinics, there was very expensive equipment that was not utilized in late afternoon and evening hours due to work condition agreements; and simultaneously, the doctors were pressuring ceaselessly for improvements in their earning power. As a way of addressing these issues, I introduced what is called a “sesión” - Spanish for a meeting or work meeting. I translated this concept into designated work hours in the afternoon and evening, paid for by Clalit as overtime, during which the equipment would also be ultilized as part of the delivery of appropriate medical care.

The doctors saw these work hours a vehicle for enhancing their earning power, rather than as a key economic solution to wastage of medical equipment and long queues for such procedures.

I was summoned to clarify things at a meeting at which Minister of Finance Nissim, Federation secretary Caesar, and I, were present. Subsequently, the Minister of Finance summoned his

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