Manhattan, NY – One of this city’s largest hospitals has accused a Hasidic group that visits sick patients of lying about the hospital’s policy to limit access by volunteers to patient floors and rooms.
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Dr. Andrew Brotman, senior vice president and vice dean for clinical affairs at NYU Langone Health, said a claim by the Satmar Bikur Cholim that it is being barred from its hospitals is “an outright falsehood.”
Brotman said groups like Satmar Bikur Cholim may still bring food to hospital-approved volunteers at its facilities, but that a recent policy limiting direct visits to patients is meant to prevent interactions with medical staff that a hospital statement described as “chaotic, counterproductive and outright harmful.”
The statement comes in response to a JTA article earlier this week that reported on the new policy at NYU hospitals. In the article, the Satmar Bikur Cholim claimed that it was being barred from the hospitals and delivering kosher food because the medical staff resented its role as patient advocates. The Hasidic group has threatened to call for a boycott of NYU hospitals.
The Satmar Bikur Cholim director, who asked not to be named, told JTA that the hospital objects to her group’s “strong patient advocacy,” which includes providing referrals to doctors and home health care, and counseling patients on issues like end-of-life care. Jewish law as interpreted by Orthodox Jews often conflicts with general practice on issues like ending life support, brain death and feeding patients who are deemed terminally ill.
Brotman in his statement acknowledged tensions over the group’s advocacy work.
Satmar Bikur Cholim “wants to position itself as the ultimate authority on all aspects of healthcare, including choosing what treatments and doctors patients and their families should ask for, and which services doctors should accept or refuse, especially when it comes to end-of-life decisions,” said Brotman, who declined to speak to JTA for the original article. “Conflating this bigger issue with the unsupervised delivery of food to patient floors is dishonest and deceitful, and intended solely as fear mongering to vulnerable populations for suspicious personal gains.”
The news release containing Brotman’s comments also asserts that Satmar Bikur Cholim “has gone out of its way to distort the truth by spreading outright falsehoods and misleading innuendo, and Lashon Hara – which is antithetical to the very ethics and values of the Jewish community.”
“Lashon hara” is a Hebrew phrase meaning sinful gossip.
Scott Seskin, an attorney representing the Satmar group, said the hospital’s new statement is damaging.
“Rather than engage in a constructive dialogue, NYU has chosen to insult an esteemed organization which has been providing services to the community for more than 50 years,” he said. The statement “shows how little respect they have for the organization, and it grossly underestimates the support it has from the Satmar community.”
NYU says that Satmar Bikur Cholim is welcome to restock the hospital’s own bikur cholim rooms, which it has set aside at two of its hospitals (a third is planned at its orthopedic hospital in Manhattan). However, the volunteers may not personally deliver food to patients. NYU says its own hospital volunteers will bring the food from the bikur cholim rooms to patients.
“First and foremost, NYU Langone Health’s Bikur Cholim program is as extensive as any hospital system in the city, if not the country,” Brotman said. “Fulfilling the religious and cultural needs of everyone who comes to our hospitals is integral to ensuring the welfare and well-being of our patients and the communities we serve. It is fundamental to our very mission.”
The Satmar group’s director said her group is still considering a boycott of the hospital.
“A boycott is definitely something in the making,” she said. “We’re trying to take all steps to avoid a situation that’s going to be uncomfortable for both NYU and the community. We’re at a point where if nothing else works, this is what we’ll need to do. We hope NYU understands that it’s to their best interest to let us come back.”
The head of an association of Orthodox Jewish nurses — who herself works at NYU Langone — weighed in on the spiraling dispute.
“My colleagues and I, frum [Orthodox] NYU nurses, are terribly disappointed in how Satmar handled this,” said Blima Marcus, a registered nurse with a specialty in oncology who works at the Perlmutter Cancer Center. Marcus is president of the Orthodox Jewish Nurses Association, which has about 2,000 men and women in its network, she said.
NYU Langone is known for having a large number of Orthodox Jewish patients and staff, Marcus said, and the hospital “is extremely culturally competent.”
As an example, she said the hospital sends frequent notifications to staff about the Passover seders and holiday services it offers, including a temporary outdoor booth for Sukkot meals.
Marcus said the Satmar Bikur Cholim dispute with NYU reflects poorly on the Orthodox community as a whole and is embarrassing to her and her religious colleagues.
“The assumption that observers should be allowed access to health decisions is bizarre,” Marcus told JTA in an interview. “If I’m a patient talking to my physician about my advance directive or health care proxy and a Satmar woman delivering soup thinks she overhears something and asks if I want to talk about it, that is overstepping bounds.
“It’s illegal, unethical and vastly inappropriate” for them to get involved in patients’ medical care, she said. “They should not be advocating. They should be delivering chicken soup and leaving.”
JTA learned Friday that other members of the Hasidic community, including some representing the Satmar movement, met Friday morning with NYU Langone officials suggesting that Satmar Bikur Cholim does not speak for the entire community. A source who provided photographs of the meeting said “NYU reassured their full commitment to serve the community and will continue to accommodate Bikur Cholim activities in accordance with the Hospital policies.”
In a direct message, the source wrote: “The community greatly appreciates the @NYULangone leadership for their understanding and cooperation.”
I honestly don’t know the ins and outs of this situation, and who’s right here, but I must say that the quoted comment by the head of the nurses association, that “they should deliver chicken soup and leave” if true, is offensive and tone deaf.
There’s a “shvill hazahav” here between assisting patients and interfering with their medical care, but the answer isn’t stick to chicken soup and let us doctors take care of the rest.
If this is the attitude behind the issue, it would appear that the Bikur Cholim is in the right.
Just leave your chicken Soup and Shut Up you obnoxious Jew. Stop embarrassing the Other Orthodox Jews who work in the hospital and are following orders like good employees. Stop trying to extend the lives of old and sick people who should just be allowed to give up hope and “LET GO”. “ITS OK TO LET GO” “LET YOUR LOVED ONE JUST LET GO”. “THERE IS NO QUALITY OF LIFE LEFT FOR THEM ANYWAY” Welcome to OBAMA Care DEATH Panels being helped out by JUDENRAT JEWS like BLIMA MARCUS. OMG!!!!
This is beginning to sound more like it . Mussar Haskil ….don’t jump to any conclusions till you have all the facts .
How many lonely people nebech want these volunteers to stay with them and shmooze? Many. Sounds like they don’t appreciate too many volunteers walking the corridors of the hospital as its bothersome so they can just set some boundaries but to shoo them away is beyond disgraceful.
If they want to prevent the hospital from pulling the plug, that’s legit. If they want to harass the nurse because the patient ran out of tissues, or tell the staff they have to call the podiatrist on their list instead of a different podiatrist for the patient’s foot fungus, that’s not their place.
Chutzpadik…at best…for any Bikur Cholim to cross their lane like this. These Yoelis act as if they can run the hospital.
Shame on Blima Marcus. U know pretty well that this more the soup! Yes the Bikur Cholim people know alot about doctors. And stop kissing up. If u where sick god forbid u would want them around for the soup and everything else.
I side with bikur cholim…these are tzaddikim who give of their own time for the sake of helping the sick and needy, unlike the shmendricks here who just look for an opportunity to bash either the Frum, or the president.
Satmar should be smarter about talking to patients and their families. Doing it in front of doctors or nurses like Marcus is diplomatically the wrong way to handle delicate situations.
Blima is 100% correct. Deliver the chicken soup and leave. Sara Stern who represents herself as Satmar Bikur Cholim is an opportunist , she hides the fact that she goes around the hospital and signs up NYU hospital patients to her own Homecare Agency , that’s the reason she was kicked out of NYU. The Bikur Cholim room in NYU is fully stocked and was never an issue of closing it, just the opposite the hospital supports it , Sara Stern is doing her own Homecare Business inside NYU , advocating against using hospital services and that’s very wrong . Mrs Stern is doing a disservice to every Jew and other Bikur Cholim org’s In metro NY by spreading falsehoods against a Hospital that’s doing examplary work on a daily basis for the Jewish community that it serves.
Mrs Markus.Very good employee I hope you get a raise you know the $1.00 more an hour from the high roller executives….
Now we orthodox people will keep on donating tons of money to our Bikur Cholim Organizations…and remember when one of your loved ones is in the Hospital let there faith be in the doctors…don’t accept nothing and no advice from the orthodox community that shames you for the $40.000 you make a year
My own mother was in a hospice and the doctor decided to stop feeding her to speed up death. After my objections the doctors continued feeding her and she was conscious and alive for another six months. The hospital should publish their policy of end of life and come up an amicable resolution.
There is nothing wrong with SBC supporting patients and offering to help. A patient can always refuse, nobody is forced to accept a suggestion. Many of these women have been visiting the same floors for years and know the doctors and staff. Is it so terrible if a patient says this hurts or they don’t understand the doctors for a volunteer to suggest they contact someone?
I was grateful to Satmar Bikur Cholim for advocating on my behalf 30 years ago when my sick baby was in a room with some other kid whose relatives were coughing & spluttering everywhere. The nurses told me to MMOB & to basically shut up & I was distraught: he was 10 days old & they thought he had meningitis. But when this nice older lady spoke to them, the other patient was out, along with the sick relatives.
What did the volunteer do that was so wrong there? G-d should bless them, they are amazing & no one can do what they do.
Just what we need are these ignorant uneducated satmar ladies getting involved in patient care. They are bus stop gossip experts and abound with knowledge from bungalow colony yenta circles. We need more phony patient advocates in NY hospitals and medical referral organizations to really make patients and their families crazy. Even more important are more chronic Lyme expert organizations, articles about PANDAS in Ami magazine, and a fundraiser with a Chinese auction and dinner journal for PEACH.
Blimi Marcus and anyone like her should be ashamed of themselves, she completely lost her mind and sensitivity to the Jewish way of life and to people’s needs and feelings.
In my opinion the majority of the liberal Obama loving Garbage are complicit in murder, nothing less.
when my 39 year old brother in law, father of 3 young children was in NYU fighting for his life the and unable to eat, and had no plans to die and was fighting with every bit of strength to survive, the doctors who think they became g-d (because they went to medical school,) told him it’s the end and “Frum” employees of NYU were trying to convince him to go to cavalry hospice to die in peace, by telling him that there is a whole frum floor and “they will make you feel comfortable” My brother in law not knowing what a hospice was, agreed to go, until I showed him the website where it said “average stay 28 days” meaning there is no going home from there, did he change his mind thank G-D.
These killers almost got him to go and if not for friends and family, his kids would have lost him with in a month. With the help of Hashem we found an old timer surgeon who disagreed with all the young doctors and said they have a culture of death, he operated on my brother in law and gave him another four good years with his children.
Unfortunately this culture of death that is so prevalent with the doctors of today and the liberal Obama policies lead doctors to refuse to continue treating him to extend his life, telling us that he is fighting for 10 years it’s enough, even though my brother in law begged them to do all they can to extend his life no matter what it took, right up to his passing, but they refused and decided not to listen to the older doctor who helped give him another 4 good years with his children as well as another oncologist who pleaded with them to give him certain medicines which they refused just to hasten his passing, saying any treatment will just help temporarily and its unethical.
Bottom line: I’m traumatized and disgusted and lost faith in these modern day killers, we are not talking about a 95 year old patient who’s heart and organs are failling and in a coma, we are talking about a young father who had his whole life ahead of him was fully concious and a putting
up a fight to the bitter end, but they emphatically refused his and our pleas to give him treatment.
I want to remind people of the brilliant words of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, ” it’s not the doctors job to predict death but only to heal”
They are not prophets and just dont know.
how many times in recent history have we read news stories where doctors declared young patients brain dead leading parents to agree to donate organs when they awoke from a coma at the last minute and made full recoveries.
Patients in all hospitals should have the right to have real advocates like bikur choilim and people who care, we dont live under a dictatorship where we have no rights.
all these hospitals want is money and they use idiots like blimi marcus to further their agenda at the cost of Jewish and non Jewish lives.
We must raise or voice, fight and not walk to the gas chambers.
We should boycott NYU unless they change their policies and lies.
They must not interfere with BIkur Choilim or any other patient advocate.
Moshiach Now!
This is a very painful and sensitive subject, but this was in the making for many decades. Some Jewish liason, with the backing of some W organizations messed it up badly. It’s known for years, and I personally fought for many ptns who literally died in NYU, because they decided to place one as a Jewish liason, who didn’t do a dam thing, only to hug NYU, while letting Jewish ptns bleed to dead. Ask any Askin of the horrible service of NYU, that should make one think twice, if God forbid needed, to place a ptn there. Bikkur Choilim, as many know and every hospital knows that there’s no better noble organization than Bikkur Choilim. Indeed, when it comes down to a decision of death and life NYU will always push for DNR and DNI and….. will give no dam fly about it. One Jewish organization took a position now to protect NYU and let the ptns die and let Bikkur Choilim be degraded. Sadly, this is not new, and over 20 years, as far as I know, NYU indulges to see ptns die and of course Bikkur Cholim will recommend ptns to leave and tell ppl to escape for their own life and so did I and many others, who didn’t look for the fame, only to save Jews. I’m saying the inside of the story, as I and many others know it. It’s the Era of Moshiach that every good thing is being bashed, with the help of our own Jews, if it’s Jewish Chinnuch or a noble organization, like Bikkur Cholim, that the holy Satmar Rebetzen established. Although, I’m not a Satmar Chusid, the SBC was honored by every segment of Klal Yisrael. This Jewish nurse find publicity on the account of Bikkuris Cholim. The Chilul Hashem that she’s creating is immense and severe ; she’s playing with fire. What does the gentile need, when the work is already being done by a, so called Jewish nurse. They found a Jewish nurse who already talks like Hitler “drop your soup and leave” . Who asked her? Is she a doctor? She’s a nurse and creating the greatest Chilul Hashem of the Bikkur Choilim, who brought the greatest Kiddush Hashem till now. I refrained from being expressive for years, however in the sake of the many ptns who already died in NYU, for pure negligence, while being ignored by…. and tried to be saved by BC It pains me and I simply can’t hold back. This was in the making for many years what NYU is doing now and finally they openly showed their face and expressed fully their antisemitism, with the help of one organization. Didn’t I and others warn for years.. and…. “stop the crulity at NYU” . All they did is they laughed in the face of ppl fighting for the life, the ill dying Jews. And instead of realizing now that NYU hates Jews, they decided to crush them. It’s sad and my heart terrible pains over what’s going on in NYU, a hospital, where ppl are dying or ladies giving birth in the hallway, with no one to care.
This is the inside painful dogma of… with the backing of…. vs the noble Bikkur Cholim, who cries for years that ppl are dying there.
An advocate for Jewish ptns.
BLIMA MARCUS knows what is right she is a DNP, her father ZALMAN LIEB BAU is extremely rich person in BP her husband YANKI MARCUS is a Ex Satmar a very big real estate developer who sees the corruption and sticks to whats right they aren’t afraid of Satmar and will do what is right
As a Satmar member I know both of these people who did the Ami Magazine & YouTube campaign against NYU. Sara Stern & Israel Meisels are two Balia Machlokos who have both alienated their own families . Sara Stern has fought fights with her sisters and brothers and cut her own mother off from most of the family, all for Yerusha purposes . Israel Meisels did the same to his own older brother, a noted Askan in UTA and bal tzedaka who was not a able to see his own mother because Israel meisels wanted the whole yerusha . So these two Balai machlokos and Loshon Hara experts are not representative of the SBC, all they are is balai machlokos and in the case of Sara stern it’s pure business , Sara Stern has no business soliciting clients in the NYU hospital for her own Homecare Agency . business, when Sara Stern was stopped from doing this then all of sudden NYU became a villain , that’s all there is to this .
Thank you bikur cholim . you extended my mothers life by easily 10 years while she utilized nyu and their doctors in their private offices. joseph silber
Mrs Lubling olea hasholem you saved my mother so many times at NYU. It is absurd to criticize the bikur cholim.
my mother was elderly she was in a rehab it was time to go home my mother would not be able to be home alone Mrs Sara Stern guided us every step of the way and my mother was able to have assistance at home for 10 more years of her life. Even if Mrs Stern has a business so what? She does good things with her business. She saved my mother . Joseph Silber
Agudah’s Chayim Aruchim works with the staff of hospitals and palative care institutions to end the life of your loved ones “with dignity”.
Big deal, Ms Marcus, an email about all pastoral functions Easter pessach and Good Friday. I used to receive those when I was employed there. These dont mean much and you know it well if you are religious. Im glad Im outa there. The mandatory course 2 years ago was most days in church. I remember well. I had to attend a very inconvenient time because a huge percentage was in Church.