Lack of apprenticeships keeps lab technicians from state licensure

Dozens of laboratory technicians who have completed their studies are unable to get jobs in hospitals and health maintenance organizations due to a new Health Ministry regulation. As a result, they claim, many are abandoning the profession.

The regulation in question, enacted in February 2006, requires medical lab technicians to undergo an apprenticeship of 600 to 1,200 hours, depending on how long it has been since they finished school.

After that, they must also pass a licensing exam. But since the ministry does not finance the apprenticeships, the hospitals and HMOs must do so, and many say they have no budget for this. As a result, they are simply refusing to hire lab techs without experience.

The regulation was adopted to solve a genuine problem: Until then, hospitals and HMOs had required lab techs to undergo an unpaid training period, after which they might or might not be hired. That resulted in numerous suits by lab techs over having been forced to work without pay.

However, in solving this problem, the ministry created a new one, with the result that many lab techs are now unable to find work.

G., for instance, has a doctorate in medicine and life sciences. Nevertheless, the ministry refuses to certify him unless he undergoes an apprenticeship, which he has been unable to find.

Ultimately, he abandoned his effort to find work in the health system and is now working in high-tech instead.

Dr. Amir Shanun, head of the ministry's licensing department, said that he is aware of the problem, and the ministry plans to provide a solution "within weeks." It is currently working on a revised regulation, he said, and then all that is needed is approval by the Knesset Labor, Welfare and Health Committee.

According to attorney Ilana Misher of the ministry's legal department, the new regulation will allow lab techs to take the licensing exam without first completing an apprenticeship.

But not all lab techs are convinced that this will solve the problem.

"The exam is very hard, and we can't pass it without an apprenticeship," charged A. "It's a vicious circle."