Kfar Chabad resident Sara Kochava Karavani planned to spend Rosh Hashanah at home, with her family. Shortly before candle lighting on erev Rosh Hashanah she developed a sudden and strong nasal bleed. After it was apparent that it was not stopping, she went to Assaf HaRofeh Hospital in Rishon L’Tzion for treatment.
Israeli Hospital Discharges Frum Woman on Yomtov
Kfar Chabad resident Sara Kochava Karavani planned to spend Rosh Hashanah at home, with her family. Shortly before candle lighting on erev Rosh Hashanah she developed a sudden and strong nasal bleed. After it was apparent that it was not stopping, she went to Assaf HaRofeh Hospital in Rishon L’Tzion for treatment.
According to a Chadrei Chareidim report, her nasal passage was cauterized to stop the hemorrhaging. Following the treatment, she was compelled to wait three quarters of an hour to make certain there was no reoccurrence. At that time, Sara realized that yomtov had begun, and she had no way to return home, a 2.5 hour walk. She explained this to officials, who were unwilling to hear her, explaining she no longer requires hospitalization, discharging her.
She began wondering around the hospital and ran into two chareidi bochrim, who she refers to as ‘malachim’. They explained their father was in the emergency room, adding they lived nearby, offering her lodging and a seudas yomtov, a far better offer than the hospital, telling her of a nearby guesthouse.
“I took them up on their offer and spent the night – only trying to make it home in the morning, the first day yomtov. After 30 minutes I realized I simply do not have the strength for the walk, and turned around and headed back to the hosts”.
On the second evening of yomtov, Thursday, the bochrim offered to take her home by wheelchair. “HaKadosh Baruch saved me, sending me these two. I just wanted to spend yomtov home with my family”.
Asked to comment on the situation, officials at Assaf HaRofeh stated “we would be happy to respond but because of equally important matters and the fact that the spokesperson is on vacation, we will first have to probe the details of the case and only then can we respond, closer to Sukkos”.
mendel
a hospital is not a hotel. its made for patients in need…they need the room for emergency…stop crying or acting spirtiaual arrogant…
Milhouse
Can one walk from Rishon Letzion to Kfar Chabad without leaving the techum? That didn’t use to be possible, but maybe now it is.
Milhouse
First of all, from Assaf Harofeh to Kfar Chabad is not a 2.5 hour walk; it’s barely half an hour for a brisk walker, so maybe an hour for a slow one. It’s like walking from Crown Heights to Park Slope.
Second, looking at the satellite image on Google Maps, it doesn’t appear that one can walk it on yomtov. The area in between looks empty, and even if you draw squares around both towns and measure from their edges it’s still more than 1 km.
Milhouse
#1, Would you say the same if there was a blizzard outside, and a hospital was discharging patients?! A hospital is responsible for the welfare of its patients, and may not discharge them if it knows they have nowhere to go. A Jewish hospital that discharges patients on Shabbos or Yomtov has a responsibility to make sure they have somewhere to go.
Milhouse
#1, what exactly is “arrogant” about keeping basic halacha, that every Jew is obligated to keep?
A friend
To #1 Mendle.
If you were my son (C.V.), I would know that I failed raising you. When (C.V.) your in such a situation, and it’s YOU, let’s see what tune you would be singing THEN !!! Rachmonis, mercy, is a Jewish trait. I question yours.
Have an easy fast.
(And your name is MENDLE on top of this!!!??? Nebech.)
crazy
RIDICULOUS!!! as 1. wrote – its not a hotel!!!
seriously…in her situation, she probably would have been allowed to take a taxi home!!!! It would have been a Sakana for her to walk home…and probably a sakana for her to occupy a hospital bed when someone else might need it or something like that!!!
I cant believe the ridiculousness of some frum people!!!
ENT Doctor
Didn’t somebody come with her to the hospital, who could help take her home?
And isn’t there always a possibility, with an Emergency Room visit, that they will treat the problem then discharge you?
Don’t people consider that such might be the case, and they would have to have a plan in case Yom Tov starts? Can a Chabad rabbi here comment on this, if she is allowed to travel home?
And is it a good idea for a woman who finds herself alone, just gotten treated for heavy bleeding, now to go with two strange men, even if they are religious, to a strange house?
similar
I once had a similar situation and the rov adviced to arrange and pay for taxi before shabbos.
israeli
Anyone can get out of an Israeli hospital early. Just sign a form saying you were advised not to leave and you can go.
shlomo
usually it not happened, but it not religious hospital , it cionim….but it rule not discharge religious people in shabas and yom tov. only hilonim, that agry. m.b it some misunderstanding
Milhouse
#7, A taxi?! A Jewish taxi is surely ossur, and an Arab taxi is ossur even during the week, mishum sakonoh.
#8, When exactly do you expect her to have made her plan? On the way to the hospital, while being treated, or at the hospital? On the contrary, your own argument gives us the answer: people don’t anticipate being stuck at a hospital, but hospitals surely do anticipate that people will be stuck there, so it’s THEIR responsibility to have a plan. If they discharge patients on Shabbos or yomtov, they need to have instructions an address they can give them.
In any case, what heter do you think she could have used? And how could she have asked the shayla, once yomtov had started?
Puzzled
I have the same questions as #8.
Did she think she was going to be admitted to the hospital for 3 days for a nose bleed? Did she have some plan when she went to the hospital?
laughing at bored souls
It looks like Milhouse is a bored soul. Nothing better to do with your life?
Thinkster
Whether she stays in hospital is dependent on whether they have room for her or not. If not, the next lady with a bleed needs her bed. So goodbye. Hospitals are always understaffed, with limited room. If I was a Doctor, I’d discharge her.
With all due respect to this lady, how she gets how is her problem. If she lived in the States, do you think they’d keep her an extra 2 days because its a Jewish holiday? How would she deal with that?
I’m sure there’s a Chabad house in the area. Find it.
give me a break
as a medical professional student i know for a fact…you treat the patient and then discharge. its up to them how they get home. secondly, she could have taken a taxi home – my lubavitch best friend did that when her daughter got very badly burned over succos last year and it was halachichly ok. 3rdly, you dont get hospitalized for a bloody nose.
lsa
yes i am sorry to sound harsh but in this day and age hospital space is at a premium; there is barely enough room for the patients that desperately need it! no one wants more of their money taken from their checks to support more staff and hospital space so somethings’ gotta give. it is not to say staff are not caring however we have to be realistic, as #1 said, a hospital is not a hotel and once a patient is stable for discharge, that bed must go to the next person coming in. think of how annoyed you would be if you were that person who had to wait for hours (or days) because someone else was taking up that bed?
i work in an emergency room and we have had patients down here for up to 4-5 days just waiting for a bed, at times having 30 patients and one doctor due to budget cuts and other hospitals closing. while i empathize with this womans’ story (and am glad it seemed to work out in the end), i have to say that we must be more understanding about the reality of todays medical care situation.
Distant one
I have been reading this article with great interest. There are so many details that have not been mentioned. I for one not at all that religious anymore, feel the pain of this woman, My god you people, it is between R“H and Y”K
I cant believe the way some of you are replying here.
For one it never mentioned this woman’s age, 2 it never mentioned if she had other complication even though she only went for a unstoppable nose bleed. for normally gravity will take care of it, especially on the eve of R”H, Even if the distance is only 30 min= 1 hr or even 2.5 hrs walk. you cant judge others ability to handle that at any time.
Maybe she was young but pregnant maybe a thousand things ,
I am personally applaud and disgusted by all your comments here. Not one of you sharing the pain she is going through, not one of you wishing her a Shanah Tova a Rafuah Shleima etc
May god bless you all with all good, may he have pity on us enabling to feel others pain and sorry
May god bless us not to have any pain and sorry, to be joyful in health and wealth for all out days
Amen
shlomo
to Milhouse stam shaila. are you doing something in yours life except posting here ? lol
Eli
Looks like she was treated for a nosebleed and never admitted. Should the headline be changed to “Woman was refused to be admitted to a hospital for a nosebleed?”
ENT doctor
I have asked 3 different Chabad rabbis about this scenario, and they all said it would have been ok for her to get a ride home on Yom Tov. If she tried to walk home, it might cause too much stress for her and make the nose bleed come back.To force her to stay at the hospital would have caused her to hesitate to seek medical help the next time she had a medical emergency, G-d forbid, and that would be worse. Ask your rabbi if you don’t believe me.
We are all responsible for handling our own dilemmas, and not rely on hospitals or other public buildings to give us a place to stay or a handout. Milhouse, you are a left wing liberal who thinks the government and everybody has to give you everything to solve your problems. Grow up. You want to be a Torah Jew? Take responsibility for being a Torah Jew.
What would the Rebbe say if you are indeed stuck in the hospital lobby for Yom Tov? He would say, accept the challenge with joy. See it as an opportunity to meet other Jews, exchange words of Torah, organize a Yom Tov davening, create a Kiddush Hashem. Ask a hospital supervisor, in a nice way, for a blanket and pillow, and maybe a kosher meal.
Open the love in your heart to other Jews around you, and watch the reaction. If you act with a sour attitude as if you are entitled to a handout, you can predict what kind of reaction that will bring.
All Jews should be educated as to how to deal with halachic issues of basic medical dilemmas involving Shabbos and Yom Tov. It is not unusual to find yourself in the situation as this woman. Get educated in Torah. Call your local hospital, speak with a patient representative, you would be surprised at how understanding they are of religious needs.
A G’mar Sima Tovah to all.
Milhouse
ENT, who were these so-called “rabbis”? What sort of smicha do they have? A real smicha that lets them pasken actual shaylos, or a pro-forma certificate that they can hang on the wall and call themselves “horav”, but they have no more idea than my cat about halocho? What is the basis of such a heter? To ride in a Jewish taxi is an obvious issur. To ride in an Arab taxi is an even more obvious issur, even during the week. And no matter how she went, going past the techum is ossur. Where is the heter for any of this?
Your assertion that “to force her to stay at the hospital would have caused her to hesitate to seek medical help the next time she had a medical emergency” is obviously baseless, since that is exactly what she did. You pulled that one out of your behind.
What would the Rebbe say? How would you have a clue? But more importantly what has your speculation got to do with the subject? How do you think she *did* react, and how was that different than what you propose? The point is that the hospital should not have left her in that position. It should have had a plan for what to do with religious patients who are discharged on Shabbos or Yomtov, and it should have followed that plan. Dumping someone on the street is irresponsible and must be condemned so that it doesn’t happen again.
Milhouse
Oh, and anyone who would call me a “left-wing liberal” is obviously on drugs.
Milhouse
To “shlomo”, aka “laughing at bored souls” and a dozen other names, what are you doing with your life? How do I know how many times you’ve commented, since you don’t use a consistent name?
Thinkster
ENT Doctor – you are the MAN, brother!
Although, more like a Proctologist.
As long as we can laugh about it
Hey Thinkster – you the comedian!
Hey Milhouse – sometimes your comments are funny too, but just maybe you yourself should take some drugs to calm down a bit. You never can tell, you might benefit, and perhaps EMT Doctor can get you a prescription!
We can all rejoice that the poor lady survived and got home eventually. Boruch Hashem!
PS – I hope this hospital, and all hospitals, have a program of sending “clown doctors” to visit patients, because as everyone knows, “laughter is the best medicine” — and see the Gemorah Taanis 22a, about clowns/comedians who merit immediately to the life in the world to come — v’chein tehye lonu, gemar chasima tova!
smarty
millhouse – seriously get yourself a day job!!!
“To “shlomo”, aka “laughing at bored souls” and a dozen other names, what are you doing with your life? How do I know how many times you’ve commented, since you don’t use a consistent name?”
you see i use a consistent name, i only comment once on some articles as i dont feel the need to plaster my name everywhere and to reply to every jo shmo that comments!
AH
Milhouse:
I don’t know who the rabbis were that ENT consulted, but you might start by looking up Shmiras Shabbos Kehilchasah 40:43, where he says that in some cases a patient may indeed be driven back from the hospital on Shabbos (albeit not outside of the techum) by a non-Jewish driver. Are you now going to claim that R’ Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt“l also doesn’t know halachah, G-d forbid?
Incidentally, you might also look ibid. 40:15, that while indeed one should try to get the hospital to not violate Shabbos, this is ”more likely to be achieved by a soft-spoken request than by a peremptory demand.“ Words to live by, in website comments too!
Which brings me to ENT’s comment about you being a ”liberal,“ which you’re snickering at. I think, though, that in a sense he has you well pegged. Because what is the defining difference between a liberal and a conservative? The former rages (sometimes ineffectually) at the evils of society, and wants to ”ker a velt“; the latter realizes that human society is always going to be imperfect, and tries to work with that. In terms of Chassidus, we might say that liberals are from Olam HaTohu, conservatives from Olam HaTikkun; or that liberals are lev-based, conservatives moach-based.
Politically, to be sure, you’re conservative. But I submit that when it comes to issues relating to Judaism, you do come across as a liberal. ”Du faifst oifen velt,“ expecting it to conform in every detail to your view of Torah. Which isn’t wrong in principle, to be sure; the world is indeed to be controlled by Torah, and it needs that passionate intensity of Tohu to get us there. But we’re not there yet; we live in an imperfect world (one in which posekim deal with nuances of halachah such as you overlook), and your demands – published on the Internet for all the world to see – end up putting Torah Judaism in a bad light, indeed doing for it what ”liberals“ have ended up doing to liberalism, making it a dirty word.
Please try to bear in mind, then, that in addition to the ”makel chovlim,“ there also needs to be a ”makel noam” (see Likkutei Sichos 4:1326).
Milhouse
AH, you admit that one can’t go over the techum, so how is the psak you quote relevant? Second, riding in an Arab taxi is assur even during the week, let alone on Yomtov. MAYBE on the first night of Pesach it might be permitted, though I don’t recall such a heter in the relevant simon in Yoreh Deioh.
Just Playin-
Millhouse- You have a CAT?
shlomo
to 24Millhouse-such childish reaction, we need ask social service to check you ability have a cat
p.s. and it my only name!
AH
Milhouse, it’s relevant because there surely must be places within the techum where she could have gone. Assaf Harofeh isn’t in the middle of nowhere, after all, and Jews are machnisei orchim like our father Avraham.
As for taxis: fine, let’s say that all Arab ones are dangerous. You do know that there are lots of goyim of other nationalities in Eretz Yisrael too (notably, lots of Russians), right? And some of them even drive taxis.
Bottom line: it would be nice if the hospital staff tried to make arrangements to avoid her having to be mechalel Shabbos. But you can’t expect to depend on that sort of thing, not even in Israel; she herself should have at least attempted to make such arrangements rather than blamestorming.
Milhouse
When exactly was she supposed to make these arrangements? On the way to the hospital? While being treated? It’s a Jewish hospital, in a Jewish country, and it must encounter this situation regularly, so it has the responsibility of finding out what’s available and making whatever arrangements are necessary so that it can inform each patient on discharge what they can do. It’s not the responsibility of patients who come from different places, and have no reason to be aware of where they can turn.