Recruiting Retired Doctors

Reported by Shalle McDonald
Written by Kasey Barr

In 2004 the Histadrut Labor Federation established a mandatory retirement age in the civil service as well as a few other sectors including government funded hospitals. The 2004 Retirement Age Law sets compulsory retirement at 67 for men and 62 for women. While there are exceptions based on special agreements, most employers do not go through the trouble and some even push employees toward earlier retirement.

Many skilled physicians have been pensioned off and hospitals have been left with staff shortages. Medical professor Mordechai Ravid, believes he has found a profitable solution for elderly doctors and non-governmental hospitals. He is recruiting the retired and has met with excellent results both administratively and economically. Ravid is medical director of Mayenei HaYeshua Medical Center (MYMC), and at age 71, he understands and values the experience and wisdom that comes with age.

He has recruited teams of doctors who have been forced into retirement yet still have incredible skills and a desire to keep practicing the trade they love and to which they dedicated so many years. Through recruiting the retired, Ravid, along with MYMC CEO Dr. Yoram Liwer have brought the hospital out of long-standing dept. The hospital profits are now allowing for growth of new units and the ability to see more patients.

Israel has four types of hospitals - government-owned hospitals; health fund hospitals; and private and public NGO-funded hospitals. "These public hospitals, ourselves included, get no government support and are players in the free market,” said Ravid. “We are not subject to any union agreement. And that's why we can employ people beyond their official pension age."

Ravid and Liwer employ a team of what they refer to as “The House of Lords”, or the retired. Prof. Gabriel Oelsner, age 71, ran the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Sheba Medical Center for over 20 years. Now at MYMC, he has set up an Ob-Gyn department with 820 births per month, almost 10,000 births per year.

Prof. Gabriel Gurman, age 72, was former chairman of anesthesiology at Beersheva's Soroka University Medical Center but was forced to retire. At the same time MYMC was outsourcing anesthesiologists because of a 17 year shortage of these professionals. Ravid hired Gurman in 2007 and in just 18 months the department has grown to a team of 12, with nine specialists despite the shortage in the field. “The atmosphere is unique and constructive, people didn't come here to advance administratively or enrich their CV. They came to serve a population," says Gurman.

Dr. Israel Doron, a lecturer in social work and gerontology at the University of Haifa, believes that people who want to continue working should be allowed to do so. For years, the focus has been on the vulnerability of older adults,” Doron says, “Not enough attention has been paid to the potential this group has.

Even with the mandatory retirement laws, MYMC and the private sector have found a ways to employ the aged and experienced with happier and healthier patients, doctors and hospitals.