Media Alert from No More Victims - www.nomorevictims.org Contact Cole Miller - Email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Phone - 323-644-2889
World News Unknown costs hamper effort to aid 7-year-old Iraqi war victim in Pittsburgh Tuesday, November 22, 2005 By Sally Kalson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette One question stands between a 7-year-old Iraqi war victim and reconstructive surgery in Pittsburgh that could bring him a more normal life: How can his sponsors raise their half of the hospital bill when there's no way of knowing how high that bill will run? nomorevictims.org Abdul Hakim Ismael The child, Abdul Hakim Ismael, was wounded last year in the city of Fallujah. His family said he was hit by fire from an American air strike, leaving the left side of his face severely disfigured -- blinded in one eye with damaged eye lid, socket, jaw and cheek, making it difficult for him to eat. An organization called No <http://www.nomorevictims.org/> More Victims is trying to make Hakim the fourth child it brings to the United States for specialized medical care not available in war-torn Iraq. (Two children have been treated in California and Texas, and a third is slated for care in Florida.) Dan Kovalik, a Pittsburgh lawyer with the United Steelworkers and a volunteer for the organization, approached a local surgeon for her help. Dr. Tonya Stefko, an oculoplastic and reconstructive surgeon at UPMC Eye and Ear Institute and Children's Hospital, immediately agreed to donate her services. So did everyone else she asked: oral-maxilofacial surgeon Dr. William Chung; plastic surgeon Dr. Fred Deleyiannis; and ocularist Walter Tillman, who makes prosthetic eyes. Mr. Kovalik was overjoyed by the quick response. "We thought once the doctors were on board the hospital would fall into place because that's what happened in other cities," Mr. Kovalik said. "But it didn't happen here." Children's Hospital agreed to absorb half the hospital bill, which could run to several hundred thousand dollars. That leaves Hakim's sponsors in a Catch-22. They can't bring him here until they know the costs are covered, and they can't know what the costs will be until they bring him here. "We have to be sure we can provide the care once we get him here," said Cole Miller of Los Angeles, co-founder of No More Victims. "We need that facility fee to be covered or waived." Hakim came to Mr. Miller's attention through a contact in Iraq who's been delivering medical supplies to hospitals and civilians in the war zones at great personal risk. Mr. Miller asked the contact to collect medical records of injured children and pass them along. In this way he's identified 11 children so far. "These are kids who've been hurt as a result of U.S. military assaults," Mr. Miller said. "As an American, I feel that's where my responsibility lies. It's important for us to show the world that this is of concern to us." The trick lies in helping each child without wiping out the ability to help others. "For us to go blindly ahead without a commitment from another source to cover the rest of the bill would be incredibly risky," Mr. Kovalik said. "It may saddle the whole project with expenses too heavy to meet." Children's Hospital provided $26 million of care at no cost to families from the 12-county region last year, according to spokesman Marc Lukasiak. Those services were financed by the Free Care Fund, a favorite local charity whose big push comes at Christmas time. The grants ranged from $10 to $20,000, Mr. Lukasiak said. But charity cases from outside the region are handled differently, on a case-by-case basis, said Children's medical director Dr. Eugene Wiener. "For international patients, we have no fund for that," Dr. Wiener said. "Whatever is not covered by other sources comes from our internal finances because that's our mission, to provide pediatric care." Children's hospitals have to set priorities on meeting their charitable mission outside the local community, said Pete Willson, vice president of the National Association of Children's Hospitals in Alexandria, Va. "If they didn't, the demand would always exceed their capability." Dr. Stefko said the hospital bill for Hakim could easily run to $200,000 or more. "He'd probably have to be here at least four months to be evaluated, treated and become stable enough to go home," she said, adding that she can't be sure what the child needs because the only medical report is "a very poorly translated one-page summary that I can't make heads or tails of. "From what I can tell, what he's going to need is reconstruction of his left eye socket and eye lid so that he can wear a prosthetic eye." He'll also need reconstruction of a fractured jaw and of a soft tissue scar on his left cheek, which may require a tissue transplant from another part of his body. "That's the most expensive and technically challenging way to fix it, but it may be the only thing we can do for him at this point," she said. This is not the first time someone has tried to get Hakim out of Iraq for medical care. Yasser Salihee, an Iraqi translator and journalist working for Knight-Ridder Newspapers and National Public Radio, had been attempting to find a doctor outside the country to treat Hakim. In June, Salihee was shot to death at a checkpoint, apparently by an American sniper. "Yasser was e-mailing photos of Hakim to doctors in London, Eastern Europe and Philadelphia, but it never came to anything," said Pauline Lubens <http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/photogs/photographers.html> , a Knight-Ridder photographer. She had met Hakim in June 2004 in a Baghdad hospital where he'd undergone some plastic surgery, and her picture of him ran in a year-end roundup. "It's the same kid," Ms. Lubens said after seeing the photo on the No More Victims Web site. "He's grown up a little, and he looks a little better. It's possible he's had more surgery since I saw him, but you can see from the photo that he still needs a lot more." Mr. Miller said people sometimes ask him, "Why these kids when there are tens of thousands of injured Iraqi children?" "My answer is, because these are the kids I know about." Dr. Stefko said she was asked a similar question. "The only answer I have is that someone asked me to help, and if you ask us and we're capable of giving it, we'll give it. It's not a political statement. It's just what we know how to do." If a benefactor should come forward to cover Hakim's care, what happens after he heals and is sent back to a war zone? "I know," sighed Mr. Miller, "it's like throwing sand into the ocean. An entire civilian population is being brutalized while we worry about medical care for one child. This is just my way of doing what I can, hoping that more people will pay attention. People can't respond if they don't know what's happening." _____ (Sally Kalson can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 412-263-1610.) Children's Hospital offers to help badly wounded Iraqi boy Thursday, November 24, 2005 By Sally Kalson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh gave the green light yesterday for bringing a 7-year-old Iraqi war victim to the facility for reconstructive surgery, and the news is making Thanksgiving Day even brighter for the child's American sponsors. The boy, Abdul Hakim Ismael, was wounded last year in the city of Fallujah. His family said he was hit by fire from an American air strike, leaving the left side of his face severely disfigured -- blinded in one eye with damaged eyelid, socket, jaw and cheek, making it difficult for him to eat. Three local surgeons -- Dr. Tonya Stefko, Dr. William Chung and Dr. Fred Deleyiannis -- and an oculist, Walter Tillman, offered over the summer to treat Hakim at no cost. Children's initially agreed to absorb half the hospital bill, which could run into several hundred thousand dollars. But that left Hakim's sponsors in a bind -- afraid to risk bringing him here unless the costs were covered, unable to determine the costs until they brought him here, and afraid that the final tally would wreck their efforts to assist other children. But Children's Hospital had a dilemma of its own -- balancing the potential expense of this case against the cost of its ongoing mission to treat children in the 12-county area. The institution's Free Care Fund is reserved for local families and cannot be tapped for Hakim, so the hospital would have to absorb any uncovered expenses from its own finances. "There are hundreds, if not thousands, of children in foreign countries whose cases are very compelling and tear at the heart strings every bit as much as this one," Mr. Walters said. "If Children's tried to provide free care for all for whom requests are made, it would soon exhaust its resources." The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a story about the dilemma on Tuesday and yesterday the hospital gave the go-ahead to bring the child to Pittsburgh. The child and his father must be brought first to Jordan for a visa (there is no working U.S. Embassy in Iraq) and then to Pittsburgh. The process could take a month. "I'm elated. I couldn't think of anything to be more thankful for," said Dan Kovalik, a local lawyer and volunteer with the organization No More Victims. The group -- www.nomorevictims.org <http://www.nomorevictims.org/> -- is seeking donated medical care in the United States for about a dozen Iraqi children wounded by the American military in a war with few distinctions between civilians and insurgents. "In the Jewish faith, there's a saying that to save one person is to save the entire world, and now we can save this one person," Mr. Kovalik said. "When I'm sitting down to dinner, the first ones I'll thank are the people at Children's Hospital for making this happen." Children's Vice-President Dean Walters said that bringing the child to Pittsburgh for the surgery he needs "was the hospital's intent from the beginning." "Ordinarily, our policy would exclude Abdul Hakim from consideration for charity care, but we were able to make an exception in this case due to his special circumstance as a victim of bombing during the Iraq war, and the contribution to his care being provided by No More Victims." Mr. Kovalik said that the financial arrangements have been left unspecified but that the important thing was getting the boy to Pittsburgh with a commitment that treatment would be provided. No More Victims already has raised about $10,000 for travel and related expenses for Hakim and another child whose departure from Jordan to Florida is imminent. Two other children have received care in California and Texas. _____ (Sally Kalson can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 412-263-1610.) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! 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