Ilana Cohen, chief of the Israeli Nurses Association, sent a letter on Monday to Finance Minister Israel Katz, demanding to meet with him in order to prevent a general strike over working conditions.
"The nurses are collapsing, this cannot go on," Cohen said. "These are not empty threats, we gave enough time to solve this labor disagreement. I don't need public support to go through with this, this is not an election."
The reopening of coronavirus wards in hospitals, activity at wings suspected of being infected with the virus and many nurses being forced into quarantine after being exposed to the pathogen have significantly worsened the lack of manpower they had to deal with even before the epidemic.