The Israeli government continues to shamelessly promote bringing more and more migrant workers in the nursing industry as a way to ‘subsidize’ the long-term care needs of the population – and thus evades its responsibility to dedicate the public investment required to build decent social services required for the elderly population and society in general.
All this while the authorities turn a blind eye to the astronomical brokerage fees that migrant caregivers are required to pay, illegal fees required by Israeli manpower agencies, for arranging a work permit in Israel. Enforcement authorities make little to no effort to eradicate this criminal phenomenon, and therefore the government’s stance should be only to bring new migrant workers as a last resort not the first.
Kav LaOved calls upon Israel to allow the thousands of migrant caregivers who are already in Israel, have been working as caregivers, and cannot find a new employer, to be eligible to work in nursing homes where there is a severe labor shortage. The solution is appropriate and beneficial to two marginalized groups, migrant workers and elderly patients, and therefore should be pursued before the ‘open skies’ policy of bringing thousands of new employees into the nursing industry – workers that will inevitably go into severe debt to secure a work placement leaving them particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.
Read Janaan Bsoul’s full TheMarker Hebrew article, MK Elie Elalouf: “We Will Bring Migrant Workers to Nursing Homes, The Dilemmas are Over”
