The story begins about 5 weeks ago, when a 36-year-old chareidi woman gave birth to a son in Jerusalem’s Bikur Cholim Hospital. The child was born with a problem, resulting in bleeding inside his head. Doctors at Bikur Cholim stabilized his condition, but the experts recommend the child be transferred to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, the only hospital in Israel equipped with the high-tech medical technology and staff capable of treating his condition, intracranial bleeding.
According to a Yediot Achronot report, Prof. Husa Cohen heads the neurosurgical team capable of treating the infant, with doctors stating with a modicum of certainty his life can be saved with the technology and expertise available at Hadassah. Nevertheless, the parents of the infant remain adamantly opposed to the transfer of their son to the hospital, apparently due to the Meah Shearim mother case.
“The child’s chances of survival in Hadassah are greater than in any other hospital” Yediot quotes one of the doctors as stating, but the parents remain firm in their refusal. Ultimately, the infant was transferred to Shaare Zedek Medical Center, not their first choice, adding the child’s care is being compromised due to ideology.
As a result, the infant is transported to Hadassah for treatment and returned to Shaare Zedek. The report adds that the medical team insists the traveling back and forth is not in the infant’s interest, but the parents remain adamant in their refusal, unwilling to admit the child to Hadassah.
Chareidi askan Dudi Zilbershlag, in his capacity as the spokesman for Bikur Cholim, confirms that the parents refuse to transfer their child to Hadassah.
Yoeli Krauss, who is deemed the operations officer of the Eida Chareidis told Yediot that “we want our tzibur to receive the best medical care possible. We advised the parents to transfer the child to Hadassah but they refused,” adding “our tzibur is hysterical”.
Krauss adds “If Hadassah has any concern; it would issue a public apology to clear the air and climb down from its tree. If this was done, the situation would revert back to its former state and it would heal the wounds. Failure to do so places the responsibility solely on Hadassah”.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
16 Responses
The choice is the family’s and it is foolish not to give the child the best care possible.
Nice try Krauss. Responsibility in this case rests solely on the shoulders of those who vilified and called for a boycott of Hadassah, and the parents of this child.
Based on their willingness to endanger this poor child, I wouldn’t be surprised if these “parents” have something else to hide.
Big shocker that they don’t want to go to a hospital that has taken other offenders to task for their Crimes.
As far as Yoeli Krauss is concerned- I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Yom HaDin is coming Yoeli..
There is only one word to describe these parents “Idiots” if anything happens to this baby it will be the parents fault and they should face the concequences. They do not realise how precious their baby is and by not listening to anyone they are causing unnecessary suffering to the baby This is not frumkite but just plain stupidity its just another example of people trying to show that they are frummer than the next person
absolutely amazing to me how he puts the blame on hadassah. perhaps the rebeiim that people in this community are supposed to follow should speak out and exert some control over their community.
maybe the parents refuse to admit their child to Hadassah for fear that they will also be found guilty of some trumped up crime.
Disgusting, but not surprising.
A tragic example of a community who place STYLE above SUBSTANCE. Shame on the community organizers and rabbis for encouraging such outrageous treatment of children.
It is ironic. The Eida Chareidis creates a crisis, vilifies Hadassah Hospital and creates public hysteria, and within a month Hashem creates a situation that requires the Eida Chareidis to tell their very own community to use the very institution they just finished vilifying. The Eida blames the lack of follow thru by the parents on the very hysteria that they created, but points the finger of blame at the institution.
What does the institution do? Exactly what they have always done. Bend over backwards to do the best job they can for the welfare of the baby, despite whatever craziness happens to preoccupy the minds of the baby’s parents. It appears that each group remains true to form. “Ha-Achron megaleh al HaRishon.”
1) Take anything printed in Yediot Achronot with lots and lots of salt. We can’t rely on their account as being at all reliable.
2) It seems like the child is actually receiving treatment at Hadassah but is being housed at Shaarei Zedek (not such a bad place either) and the issue is the “commute”. Given what Hadassah allegedly did in the earlier case (and the evidence I’ve seen weighs fairly strongly towards the conclusion that they did actually do it, enough so to convince R’ Dovid Soloveichik, shlita), I can understand this family’s reluctance to entrust their child to a place that might be capable of such things.
3) Given that this family is shomer mitzvos, it seems likely that whatever they do is with the advice of their daas Torah, in which case there are no questions.
4) BTW, does anyone know what’s happening in the earlier case? I haven’t seen any updates for a while.
I think in the US the hospital would petition the court to take the child away and give him/her the proper care needed. The parents are total idiots.
don’t forget folks that this piece of news is taken from the Yediot Achronot. I think there is no need to explain how unreliable this source is, especially when this story is meant to beseech the Eide Hachareidus.
Most of you commenters must be from chutz. As a former health professional living in EY, I must underline that Yoeli Krauss is totally correct. The hospital has erred in not making a statement of concern underlining its good practices; the silence creates more suspicion and does not look good. The staff’s handling of the chareidi mother situation was amateurish and arrogant. As a nonchareidi I would think twice about using this facility. State-of-the-art equipment is only a good choice when used by caring and responsible professionals, not simply talented medical staff who are training their residents and covering their rear ends. In this case I too might leave the cure largely to H and not rely too much on human intervention; I had an experience where the “best and brightest” made a wrong and arrogant decision that was disastrous.
Dr Jose Cohen.Top brain surgeon from Hadassa? Renown in the whole medical world. Please give him the mimimal respect by writing his name correctly.
#16: You can believe what you choose to believe. I am a former health professional. I stand by everything that I wrote in my post. You certainly have not given any reasons for your comment.
If you are going to make a provocative statement, it would make more sense if you backed it up with something of substance, unless you are just venting.
#11 and #17: Instead of looking at the facts and examining the news sources, many of which are inaccurate and biased, both of you are editorializing on very limited information. The actual situation of the Haredi mother and her child has not been clarified, but it is very clear that the hospital has put its foot in it. Perhaps you like #16 are not interested in the comments of someone who has been a hospital auditor as I have. Well and good. You are entitled to your viewpoints, even though they may be incorrect and not based on facts. So far I have observed that the Israeli medical system is full of lacunae and in need of system overhauls. BTW I have worked not only in the health field but also in information technology and it is common knowledge that a health system is one of the hardest to overhaul.
#21
I don’t want to debate you. First of all you use insulting adjectives. Second, I don’t offer diagnostic speculations from reading news articles. One of the problems I had with this case initially was that several news sources were calling this woman “Munchausen Mom” on absolutely no solid evidence and certainly without any professional having given a diagnosis. This is not only libel but a libel. In fact it is a character lynch and unworthy of Jews.
1)The hospital should provide evidence of its good faith as a matter of public record, no matter what the situation. No one is beyond question, as the Torat Moshe points out. Egla Harufa.
2)The gaining weight may have had to do with several factors, not simply as it was reported in the news.
3)The mother has stated publically that the child has been sickly since birth and that she took the child on and off to Hadassah over a 3-yr period. There was apparently no problem with the hospital until about six months or so ago.
4)If you read a large range of news reports you will see that there was apparently a lot of question about the child’s diagnosis. This apprently led to various treatments being tried. The entire facts will come out at a court hearing or trial, so I suggest that you do not come to conclusions until you read transcripts. You would also benefit from reading the news sources carefully without taking sides beforehand. Further, the Eida Haredit has printed “the other” side of the story which I suggest that you read since most of the Israeli news sources are not charitable toward haredim.
5)My experience so far with firsthand knowledge of situations which are reported in the Israeli news is that the news is often unreliable and quite slanted, leaving essential facts out and parroting official sources.