[COMMUNICATED]
That is exactly what many patient advocates claim. Mrs. Hendel Lezer A”H, 33, was admitted to Maimonides Hospital, after suffering difficulty breathing as a result of Covid 19.
As a cancer survivor, she was particularly vulnerable, and took extra precautions. However, she still contracted the virus. After failing to maintain a sufficient saturated oxygen level, she was admitted to the hospital, where she gave birth to a tiny baby boy.
As her condition continued to deteriorate, the family and medical advocates started searching for any possible treatment that would help her recover. After consulting with top doctors in New York and the Mayo Clinic it was determined that being that she was not producing antibodies on her own she needed to get an infusion of HIG or convalescent plasma.
Hendel’s family and doctor immediately appealed to the hospital to treat her with Convalescent plasma therapy by infusing her with plasma extracted out of blood donated by people who’ve recovered from the Coronavirus and developed antibodies, to help her body combat the virus.
The Hospital vehemently objected to the pleas of family, friends, and advocates, citing protocol. Their protocol would only allow a patient who contracted covid less than a week ago to receive the treatment. The decision was was not up to Hendel’s doctors who knew her medical history best but the final decision stopped at Dr. Robert Press. Shockingly, Dr. Press stubbornly refused calls to discuss this specific case with top experts in the country and time was running out. Hendel’s condition was deteriorating. There was no budging. A call from the Mayor’s office to Ken Gibbs, Maimonides CEO, urging all possible treatments be given, went nowhere. All pleas fell on deaf ears.
Transferring was not an option.
Tefillos intensified and then we were left heartbroken.
Whether the Convalescent Plasma treatment would have saved her life or not is a matter up for discussion, but one thing is certain, ego definitely got in the way.
A family has been left devastated!
This young mother of five, the youngest only a few days old in the Nicu, who served as a devoted preschool principal, and was adored and admired by all, has been tragically torn away from her loved ones.
A tiny little baby will never get the chance to feel genuine motherly love.
Five children will never again feel the warm hug of their beloved mommy.
A young man – a tremendous talmid chochom and ben torah, has been left to raise his five little heartbroken children on his own.
The astronomical amount of money it will take, to ensure that the physical and emotional wellbeing of these poor children are dealt with in a proper manner, is way more than what this distraught father can handle.
Therefore, an emergency campaign has been launched, to raise the necessary funds to save this family from having to suffer insult in addition to their devastating injury, by enduring financial collapse.
Please dig deep into your hearts and souls, and contribute generously and graciously to this emergency campaign, so that these children should at least have their basic necessities taken care of.
No, there is nothing we can do to bring their mommy back, but we can make their rough journey ahead a bit smoother.
Why not also file a Law suit against this Doctor who put his ego in the way so this does not happen again
Convalescent Plasma isn’t given later than a week after contracting covid, because it is not effective tha late in the course of the disease.
Her doctors were not pushing to have her get it, the askanim were- and the doctors agreed it would likely not harm her.