Israeli hospital refuses to treat Palestinian child with cancerAnd why is this happening, according to the story?
The Israeli Kaplan hospital has expelled a Palestinian girl, Lin Hassan, who has been suffering from cancer in both her kidneys despite her treatment was not completed.
The child's mother said in a statement on Saturday that immediately after her daughter started receiving treatment, she was surprised when the hospital administration informed them of the decision to stop all treatments for Lin.
She said that her child was scheduled to be operated on for the removal of the tumor, but the hospital administration expelled her because the Palestinian Authority did not pay the dues of Lin's previous stay in the Israeli hospital.Interestingly, Iran seemed to have this story before any Palestinian Arab sources did. Islamic Jihad media's newer version was published today.
Even if this story is true, it reveals an astonishingly cynical use of children's lives for the apparent purpose of endangering them to blame Israel.
Hamas has already gloatingly tweeted this story.
The PA has been refusing to pay for Israeli hospital stays for years, much to the consternation of Israeli medical professionals. From the New York Times, 2009:
Scores of Palestinian patients being treated in Israeli hospitals, a rare bright spot of coexistence here, are being sent home because the Palestinian Authority has stopped paying for their treatment, partly in anger over the war in Gaza.Meanwhile, for at least some patients, the IDF pays for their treatment itself.
Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem says that for the past week, no payments have come in and Palestinians whose children it is treating have been instructed by Palestinian health officials to place them in facilities in the West Bank, Jordan or Egypt.
“Suddenly we have had 57 patients dropped from our rolls,” said Dr. Michael Weintraub, director of pediatric hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplantation at Hadassah. “We have been bombarded by frantic parents. This is a political decision taken on the backs of patients.”
Yesterday (Tuesday), a Palestinian girl from the West Bank was released from the Rambam hospital in Haifa. She had been admitted two months ago for a bone marrow transplant, which was funded by the Israeli Civil Administration.
"Without undergoing this transplant, this young girl would not still be with us," said Dalia Bessa, the Health Coordinator for the Civil Administration in the West Bank. The three and a half year old girl has been undergoing treatment for the last three years, after being diagnosed with thalassemia, a blood disorder.
"The only possible way to save her life was to undergo a bone marrow transplant," said Hanna Nishri, who is responsible for patient intake at the hospital. "Since funds for the procedure were not forthcoming from the Palestinian Authority, the Civil Administration, working through the Health Coordinator, decided to help save the girl's life."
Think about it from the Palestinian Arab leaderships' perspective. If Israel gives them free treatment, they win. If the children die because Israeli hospitals cannot afford to provide free care for them, they simply publicize this and they win even more.
The only losers are the Palestinian Arab people - and they are just cannon fodder anyway, if you are Mahmoud Abbas or Khaled Meshal.
(h/t Gidon, IranAware)