Africans Locked Up in Hospital Waiting Room
A Ghanaian man who has lived in Israel for 14 years reported on Wednesday that he was forced to wait for a doctor for his sick baby while locked in a room at Dana Children’s Hospital in Tel Aviv.
Isaac Asiedeu’s story of being locked in at the children’s hospital, in Ichilov Hospital, with his feverish, vomiting son is only one of the complaints received by the Hotline for Migrant Workers since Ichilov decided earlier this week to separate migrant and refugee patients from Israeli patients.
The hotline is threatening to bring Ichilov’s management to court, and the Health Ministry, which owns the hospital, said it was reviewing the legality of the hospital’s new policy.
The instructions were issued by Ichilov director Prof. Gabi Barbash, apparently spurred by concern over recent incidents of tuberculosis among migrant patients. Under the new rules, all migrants and refugees admitted to the hospital must have a chest X-ray, the majority are not allowed into the hospital to visit patients, and in maternity wards, nurseries and neonatal units as well as children’s wards they are separated from other patients.
For more, go to Haaretz.com
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