NII cancels NIS 2.5 billion tender in battle with home-care companies

The National Insurance Institute (NII) was pressed on Monday into canceling a tender worth NIS 2.5 billion for nursing services to the elderly.

It is the fifth tender to be canceled in the last 12 years as a result of a struggle between the NII and the companies and associations supplying home-care services.

The tender was intended to provide social benefits and fair wages for approximately 70,000 caregivers, but the service providers oppose its conditions, although the High Court of Justice has approved them twice.

In recent months some 50 companies and associations have lodged protests against the fifth tender. On Monday, Judge Moshe Sobol of the Jerusalem Labor Court said hearings on the petitions might go on for two or three years, and suggested to the NII that it cancel the tender.

"We agreed with a heavy heart," Esther Rice, the head of nursing care at the NII said. Rice said every year that goes by the companies pour NIS 180 million into their pockets, which they receive from the NII and do not pass on to their caregivers.

Yaakov Sasporta, the NII's legal counsel, said the institute would issue a new tender, but meanwhile would try to sign the companies to contracts that included wages and benefits, as approved by the High Court.

The companies opposed the demand to open a compensation fund for each caregiver so that he or she could receive benefits after six months of work whether they were fired or quit. This would get around the practice of forcing caregivers to quit (and not paying them compensation) by not giving them a patient for months.