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"My brother refuses a lung transplant - because of a mental illness" Israel today

2021-03-15T17:40:32.914Z


| health John fights for his life at Kaplan after his lungs collapsed from his corona • His brother: "The doctor said there was no chance of a transplant" • Hospital: "The decision - after extensive consultation" Kaplan Hospital Photo:  Gideon Markovich "Because of the mental illness, they refuse to put my brother, the Corona patient, in the queue for lung transplants," says Adv. Yosef Awka in a serio


John fights for his life at Kaplan after his lungs collapsed from his corona • His brother: "The doctor said there was no chance of a transplant" • Hospital: "The decision - after extensive consultation"

  • Kaplan Hospital

    Photo: 

    Gideon Markovich

"Because of the mental illness, they refuse to put my brother, the Corona patient, in the queue for lung transplants," says Adv. Yosef Awka in a serious and unusual complaint that was sent a week ago to the management of Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot, where his brother, Yohanan, 43, is hospitalized. The person in charge and owner of the hospital, and to the director general of the Ministry of Health, Prof. Hezi Levy.

The complaint, first revealed here, states that this conduct is not only at Kaplan Hospital but is a policy in some other hospitals in the country, where there are cases where doctors avoid or refuse to recommend and promote vital and life-saving organ transplantation in a patient just because he is a psychiatrist.

In a complaint by the "Bizchut" organization, the Center for Human Rights of People with Disabilities, which was forwarded to Prof. Levy a week ago, it was claimed that Kaplan Hospital's refusal to include John in the lung transplant queue due to his disability is not the only case. It is an outrageous and immoral decision, contrary to the Patient Rights Law and the Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law. "

Following this, Adv. Rauma Goma, from the organization "Bizchot", demanded that the director general of the Ministry of Health instruct all medical staff to act in accordance with the law, according to which mental disability is not a reason to prevent the recommendation of the doctor treating referral to the transplant center. ".

The complaint is based, among other things, on the information that appears on the Beilinson Hospital website in Petah Tikva, where most organ transplants are performed in Israel, and from which it can be mistakenly understood that a mental disorder in itself is one of the conditions that prevents organ transplants.

This is while the International Society for Lung and Heart Transplantation defined that "mental disorder constitutes prevention of organ transplantation - if the mental condition causes an inability to cooperate with the complex medical treatment required after organ transplantation."

Yohanan Awka, married and living in Kiryat Gat, was hospitalized on January 20 this year at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon after complaining of a high fever and a dry cough, and was diagnosed with coronary heart disease.

Later, his condition worsened and he was connected to the artificial heart-lung machine (ACMO) and was taken to hospital on February 4 in a very serious condition and anesthetized in the general intensive care unit in Kaplan.

Yohanan's brother, Yosef, turned to senior doctors in the intensive care unit and asked to check the possibility of him entering the lung transplant queue, as he was explained that his brother's lungs were severely damaged.

He said a senior doctor told him that "there is no chance of a transplant, due to his mental background and because he has corona."

However, later, after reading in "Israel Today" that the first lung transplant in the country at the Sheba government hospital in Tel Hashomer took place in Corona patient, he again turned to senior doctors in the ward and asked to promote a lung transplant with his brother.

But again they told him, according to his complaint, that "mental illness does not allow us a recommendation for a lung transplant."

The opinion from the psychiatrist who accompanied Yohanan for many years did not help, who wrote that Yohanan "takes care of follow-up and medication and has come a long way in rehabilitation and recovery."

A week ago, Yosef decided not to wait any longer for the doctors at Kaplan and he contacted Dr. Liran Levy, the director of the lung transplant program in Tel Hashomer, directly. Following this, Dr. Levy himself came to check on Kaplan's condition in coordination and with the doctors' approval, and then told Yosef that "At this stage there are some problems that do not allow to proceed with the transplant," but he added that his brother "definitely has the potential for a lung transplant" and that he "does not rule out his candidacy at all," and that "his infections are reversible."

"Stigma kills," Dr. Zvi Fischel, chairman of the Psychiatric Association of the Medical Association, told Israel Today in response, adding that "the association has been working for years to eradicate the stigma towards psychiatric patients. The stigma towards patients, their families and the psychiatric system in general leads to discrimination and discrimination. "For example, in the share devoted to mental health from the state budget and discrimination in the drug basket, but also to distress, shame and closure."

"Dangerous stigma"

"The case described here brings the damage from the stigma to dangerous extremes: there is no and no reason to discriminate against a person just because of a psychiatric diagnosis, and a person who does not cooperate with treatment can be ill with any disease, such as diabetes, AIDS and more. Even people without any disease do not always cooperate." "With guidelines (such as vaccinations, or even wearing a mask). The time has come in the 21st century for the immediate cessation of all discrimination against a patient just because he or she suffers from a psychiatric disorder. We demand the immediate deletion of any discriminatory clause."

Kaplan Hospital said in a response that "for more than a month, the medical staff at the hospital have been fighting for the patient's life and working day and night to provide him with optimal care, along with listening to his family. All decisions were made according to accepted medical standards and some in consultation with other experts. "Not from the hospital staff. For reasons of medical confidentiality, we cannot expand on the subject."

"A set of considerations"

The Ministry of Health stated in response that "We clearly state that a mental disability does not constitute a counter-order for registration for transplantation on the waiting list for transplantation at the National Transplant Center. The guidelines of the steering committee for allocating deceased organs stipulate that As stated in section 24 of the law. "

The Ministry of Health stressed that "due to the privacy of the individual and medical confidentiality we could not elaborate, but it was clear that doctors in Kaplan intensive care believe that the patient, in light of his condition, is not medically fit for transplant, and his mental limitation "Because the patient is not fit to undergo the transplant due to his clinical condition."

They added that "as mentioned, this consideration of the mental disability was also taken into account only in relation to responding to treatment after the transplant. Over the years, people with disabilities - including mental disabilities - entered the waiting list and received a transplant. This fact shows that there is no basis for discrimination. Entering the waiting list due to a mental disability. "

Source: israelhayom

All life articles on 2021-03-15

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