A stunning and disturbing situation is unfolding at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, where the family of a cognitively impaired Orthodox Jewish patient is being denied bedside access to provide comfort to their agitated, confused, and scared family member, who is currently on a respirator.
The disturbing story was revealed in a LinkedIn post by Mayer Tauber, a friend of the family going through this ordeal.
The family has pleaded with hospital leadership to allow them access, but have been denied. Included in those the family contacted are David Reich, President of The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Queens, and Nicole Saylors, the Director of Service Excellence at the hospital. Their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
Notably, after tagging the above-mentioned Reich on his post about the story, the hospital president blocked Tauber on LinkedIn.
Despite clear New York State Department of Health guidelines, the family has been denied bedside access under the guise of Covid precautions – even as the patient remains in extreme emotional torment.
Feeling like there was no choice, the family got approval from Cleveland Clinic to initiate a transfer, but the request was reportedly sabotaged by Dr. Adel Bassily-Marcus of the Mt. Sinai Health System.
On Saturday, after more than 24 hours of the hospital neglecting to perform the patient’s desperately needed dialysis session, two young daughters of the patient respectfully implored hospital personnel to help them meet their patients’ needs. To their shock and dismay, the nurses instead called the police, who dragged the two girls from the hospital building.
This is what zero-visitation policies in Mt. Sinai and other hospitals has become: Nothing short of inhumane torture and neglect.
YWN has attempted to contact the family for further information that could benefit their loved one, but has not yet been successful in reaching them directly.
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16 Responses
Strange. This is from the website –
For adult patients, two visitors are permitted each day. Inpatient visitation hours vary by location; they are as follows:
The Mount Sinai Hospital: 9 am to 9 pm. Two adult visitors are allowed at the bedside. Visitors are interchangeable daily.
Postpartum visitation hours: 9 am to 9 pm
I thought Maimonides was the worst hospital. Perhaps Shiner and Lichtenstein should look for greener pastures and leave Maimonides alone
I have said since all those deaths רח”ל in 2020, that the main job of all the עסקנים who so devotedly represent כלל ישראל in the hall of government, is to make sure it becomes illegal for anyone ever again to deny patient visitors in a hospital. We all know from those who made it out of those hospitals during covid that the neglect of the doctors and nurses and attaching people to machines they didn’t belong on killed them. This cannot be allowed to happen again.
half the story
We just went through the same thing with my 95 yr old grandfather. We were lucky if a nurse came in once a day to check on him. No response from pressing the nurse bell. The right hand doesn’t shake the left hand. It’s absurd that a 95yr old wasn’t allowed to have anyone with him from 9pm to 9am including his aide. It baffles the mind how so many top doctors are affiliated with this crematoria
No visitation reduces quality of care and oversight in keeping HCWs honest. We must not these hospitals to become The Killing Fields of 2020 ever again.
As a healthcare professional, something sounds a little off with this story (as unfortunate as the story is). In this post-COVID era, nobody gets blocked from seeing patients at any NY State hospital. Not unless the family is disruptive on the unit to the extent that staff can’t get their work done for this patient and for all others on the Unit. Perhaps that’s why the hospital “neglected to perform the patient’s much needed dialysis,” because they simply had no time having to deal with a difficult and disruptive family. (I’m not saying that’s the case. I don’t know. Just my anecdotal observation).
Unfortunately, many of our frum brethren, need to learn a little hospital etiquette. It’s never appropriate to yell at hospital personal. It’s never appropriate to disparage them. And it’s never appropriate to pull rank over them. Most importantly, it’s counterproductive. As the saying goes, “you attract more bees with honey than with a stick.”
I’ve seen this play out hundreds of times (or more) within our community. It’s a disservice to the entire frum community when a family acts this way. Hospital staff just end up lumping “Orthodox Jews” and especially “Ultra Orthodox Jews” families as difficult to deal with, which causes them to go on the defensive right from the getgo.
to all the jews in America and the world, don’t put your horror on our world in Israel unless you intend to come…..shame on the American Nazi’s….this is where the world is going…no more donations to this obsolete structure of hate
this is a strange story and more is for sure behind the headlines. why report sensational news before investigating.?
Dear chaya13:
You don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’ve ever seen someone die of Covid in the hospital, you’d know it happens despite huge amounts of care and medical and nursing attention being given to that person, not because of neglect. Please stop libeling those of us working in health care. Thanks.
My wife was in Mt Sinai ICU for 10 days, A dog gets better care then someone here, the nurses and the support staff have a Texas sized attitude, they openly despise frum people, I was hoping the strike would last a long time because at least with the outside nurses you got care not attitude.
When my father a”h was in the hospital for nine months he often has frum roommates as well. Their family members would ask “who do you know here? He gets such good care?” We didn’t know anyone. We said “please” and “thank you.” Too many of these family members would treat a request for a pillow as an emergency, never said “hello” to any staff, or realized that there might be other patients whose needs were more pressing. My father had a seizure – the roommate’s wife complained DURING THE SEIZURE with ten medical personnel in the room that her husband’s sheets weren’t changed. We would bring cookies etc. – one roommate’s son gave us a drasha on לא תחנם. When we ultimately sat shiva, many of the staff came to pay their respects. Sadly, one of them said “you’re not the same type of religious as the other people, right?” A rav who was there at the time wondered if people realized that their loved one needed זכויות even more, would that change their behavior?
ShimieG
Thank you, I also work in Healthcare, and I have tons of second hand embarrassment by the entitled way some frum ppl act towards the security staff and nurses.
Please, thank you, respect and following the facility rules go a very long way in getting better care. Yes staff talk to each other about rude visitors. If they tell you that you need a vaccine or mask, stop arguing
Get-r-dun are you nuts? “If they tell you to get a vaccine or mask don’t argue” You don’t take into your body anything just because someone tells you to no matter what title that person holds….
I am a hospital worker in one of the Mount Sinai hospitals which to this day doesn’t allow visitors to covid patients. It is insane as the family has been with them prior and there is so much covid in the er and hospital that an additional exposure or exposures are meaningless but they still refuse visiting despite what that does. This includes dementia patients too. I’m not surprised at all. For the healthcare workers who commented earlier I guess they are just looking at their facility but have no clue what other places do
Jacob gold
You’re right I meant to say a negative covid not a vaccine yes but as far as the mask goes it’s a standard in all Health Care Facilities so yes stop arguing with that