Archive for the ‘Health care’ category

« WarSclerotic home page

Good News from Israel

December 10, 2017

(This post is part of my Good News Friday posts that I publish every Friday, bringing good news from Israel to counteract all the gloom and doom that dominates the news cycle nowadays, and to shine a positive light on the Middle East’s only democracy. — anneinpt.)

Good News Friday | Anne’s Opinions, 8th December 2017

It’s been a very exciting week this week, and it’s a great feeling to close the week with another Good News Friday installment.

Besides the actual news of Trump’s speech recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the timing should be noted too. The speech took place just a day after the 69th anniversary of Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion’s announcement of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – 5th December 1949.

Chabadniks (Lubavitcher Hassidim) will assure us that the timing was perfect for another reason. The speech took place on 19th Kislev, the date that the original Lubavitcher Rebbe was released from the Tsar’s prison, and from that year on, the date is a great festival for Chabad.

But it’s not only Donald Trump who vocally supports Israel. Listen to this amazing speech by Vice President Mike Pence at the 70th anniversary of Resolution 181:

Brian of London describes Pence’s speech and quotes the highlights:

You can watch the whole speech above, but here are the most important passages:

We gather today on the eve of a historic anniversary to celebrate what happened here, in this very hall, 70 years ago when the United Nations declared to the modern world an ancient truth, that the Jewish people have a natural, irrevocable right to an independent state in their ancestral and eternal homeland. (Applause.)

So in May 1947, less than two years after its inception, the United Nations formed the Special Commission on Palestine to propose paths forward for that region.

And on November 29, 1947 — 70 years ago tomorrow — the General Assembly gathered in this great hall and passed Resolution 181, calling for creation of the Jewish State of Israel. (Applause.)

Now to be clear: Israel needed no resolution to exist, for Israel’s right to exist is self-evident and timeless.

Nor did that resolution create the State of Israel. For Israel was born of the sweat and the sacrifice of the Jewish pioneers who risked everything to reclaim their beloved lands, with — in those well remembered words — “with a plow in one hand and a rifle in another.”

They turned the desert into a garden, scarcity into plenty, and an age-old dream into a reality. And their striving and their sacrifice laid the foundation for what took place in this hall 70 years ago.

And only six months later, the Jewish State of Israel was born — answering the ancient question first asked by the prophet Isaiah: “Can a country be born in one day, can a nation be born in a moment?”

It happened when on May 14, 1948, Israel declared “the natural right of Jewish people to be the masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign state.” (Applause.)

While Israel was built by human hands, it’s impossible not to see the hand of heaven leading its people, writing their history in the restoration of this ancient people to their land of their birth.

In fact, the God of Abraham told His people, “Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there I will gather you and bring you back to the land which your fathers possessed.”

The quoting of prophet Isaiah is fantastic. If you want to understand how important that passage of Isaiah is relating to the rebuilding of Israel, Rabbi Lord Sacks wrote an extensive commentary. We’d expect nothing less from such a deeply religious mensch as Mike Pence, so it stands out dramatically as different from pretty much everything we’ve seen for almost a decade coming out of the USA.

Read the rest of the article – it’s excellent.

Turning now to a completely different subject, the following story demonstrates Israel’s care and concern for its neighbours in the entire region, even for its enemies, which Trump and Pence described so well (and which the antisemites deny or twist the facts about).

The IDF has expanded its medical facilities for Syrian civilians caught up in the civil war and has now equipped a maternity hospital over the Syrian border:

The Israel Defense Forces has equipped a new maternity clinic over the border in Syria, as part of its Operation Good Neighbor instituted a year and a half ago to provide medical, infrastructural and civilian aid to Syrian victims of the ongoing civil war.

An Israeli soldier cradling a child at the Israeli field hospital near the Syrian border. Photo courtesy of IDF Spokesman’s Office

The hospital reportedly was opened in November in response to an urgent request from Syrian doctors who saw that many women could not get to the existing maternity hospital due to the difficult conditions.

The clinic is staffed entirely by Syrian healthcare workers using equipment donated by the Israelis. More than 200 pregnant women so far have sought medical care at the new clinic, and 30 women have given birth there.

“We took a decision not just to sit on the fence and see people slaughtered and suffering every day – we decided to help them. And we understand that it might change their feeling about Israel a little bit – that we are not Satan,” the IDF commander of Operation Good Neighbor told The Jerusalem Post.

The IDF’s Mazor Ladach field hospital for Syrians includes a playroom and provides hot meals, hygiene products and medicine to take home. Photo courtesy of IDF Spokesman’s Office

Last September, the IDF set up a secure field hospital, Mazor Ladach (literally, Bandaging Those in Need) on an unused Israeli military post in the southern Golan Heights. The Israeli staff has cared for hundreds of Syrians already, according to the Operation Good Neighbor commander.

Mazor Ladach includes a playroom and also provides hot meals. “A Syrian mother who comes with her children leaves the clinic with healthier children and an aid kit from the State of Israel that includes food, basic hygiene products, and medicine,” wrote the commander on the IDF’s official blog.

…

In addition, over the past five years an estimated 4,000 wounded Syrians have been transported to Israeli hospitals for treatment.

I am so proud of our crazy little country! Kol hakavod is to mild a term to salute the IDF and its medical teams as well as the government authorities who worked towards providing this urgent medical care for the civilians of our enemies. Hopefully these actions will change attitudes (they are already) and make new friends out of our potential enemies.

And one more item from Israel’s medical sector. An extraordinary story of Mark Lewis, a British Jew who was suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS) and underwent successful stem cell treatment in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem has been made into a UK Channel 4 TV documentary.

A prominent Jewish lawyer has taken part in a ground-breaking clinical trial at Israel’s Hadassah hospital that offers treatment which could finally offer a “miraculous” cure for the 2.5 million sufferers of multiple-sclerosis.

Mark Lewis — best known as the media lawyer who took on Rupert Murdoch over the newspaper phone-hacking scandal — is one of 48 patients to have participated in the revolutionary year-long trial at the internationally renowned hospital in Jerusalem.

At the Israeli hospital, Mr Lewis was injected with stem cells derived from his own bone marrow, directly into the spinal fluid.

Speaking to the JC before a Channel 4 documentary this week about his treatment, he said he had benefited immediately afterwards from “a miraculous 60 per cent improvement in my condition”.

He added: “Within minutes I had feeling and movement back that I had not had for years.”

“The Herzl quote they speak about a lot in Israel sums it up,” he said. “ ‘If you will it, it is no dream’.”

Watch this fantastic clip about Mark Lewis’ treatment and results:

Mr. Lewis’ observations about Israeli society are heart-warming, and it is great that they will receive a wide audience:

Mr Lewis praised the pioneering Israeli technology used by the multi-faith medical team at the university hospital at Ein Kerem. “The trial is the complete antithesis to BDS,” he said. “It is Israeli technology treating everybody with a team that has no concept of religion, nationality or whatever.

“It is purely about helping people, whoever and whatever they are — no matter what god they do or do not believe in.”

Mr Lewis said the sense of unity among the medical team was striking. “The leading professor was born in Greece and is Christian but is now an Israeli citizen. There was a Muslim doctor, there was someone from the former Soviet Union and there was a specialist who is the sister of someone known to be an Israeli ‘settler’.

“But all I noticed was this real sense of everybody pulling together to try and crack this thing.”

…

Research into the treatment’s efficacy for MS patients began at the Hadassah in 2007. It was one of the first experiments in which advances in stem cell treatments were applied to neurological diseases.

By a stroke of luck, Mr Lewis was holidaying in Israel nine years later when he heard from a friend that the hospital was seeking patients for the full-time trial.

Since being diagnosed with MS, Mr Lewis’s symptoms have grown progressively worse and he feared he would have to give up work within a few years. His life expectancy was put at just 65 years.

Mr Lewis said the first thing he did on flying out to Israel to begin the trial was to visit the Kotel to say prayers.

As to the treatment itself:

The treatment is extremely painful for the patient. In order to be injected directly into the spinal fluid doctors insert the needle, which is four inches long, between the patient’s vertebrae.

“I cannot describe to you the pain,” Mr Lewis said. “That injection took about one hour and 20 minutes — I thought I was going to faint.”

The patient’s own bone-marrow stem cells are first extracted, then enhanced and then injected into the spinal cord.

Each patient then undergoes monthly neurological evaluations including MRI scans and techniques to detect neuro-regeneration.

In addition, electrophysiological and visual tests are performed of patients’ brains with up to five complete neuro-cognitive evaluations performed for each patient.

…

Professor Karussis Dimitrios, Hadassah’s internationally renowned neuroimmunologist, will then write a report on the results allowing other medical facilities around the world to use the findings.

Mr Lewis says that some of the initial positive responses to the treatment have now began to fade and he believes another shot of injections would bring similar benefits.

“Think of it in the same way as if you were suffering from diabetes. You wouldn’t just be given one insulin shot and then told you were finished being treated.

“The treatment was over a year ago now – and I am ready for another shot. But that may never happen of course. It depends on the final results of the trial and the goodwill of the hospital.”

Kol hakavod to Professor Karussis Dimitrios and the entire research team at Hadassah Hospital for discovering and implementing this treatment. May Mark Lewis have a full and speedy recovery, refuah shlema, and may all the other countless sufferers of MS benefit from this treatment too.

On this optimistic note, I wish you all Shabbat Shalom. This week we celebrate the first days of Chanukah, so I wish you all Happy Chanukah, חג אורים שמח as well!

Categories: Health care, Israeli successes, Israeli technology, Syria war, Syrian refugees
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Obama Steals from Medicare, Curing Cancer for Illegal Aliens

November 30, 2016

Obama Steals from Medicare, Curing Cancer for Illegal Aliens, Front Page Magazine (The Point), Daniel Greenfield, November 30, 2016

(Please see also, Overwhelmed Border Patrol Agents Stuck Serving Burritos to Illegal Immigrants. — DM)

mission-accomplished_3

Every politician rewards his voters. Obama’s just happen to be illegal aliens. It’s why his DOJ spent more time fighting efforts to fight voter fraud… than fighting voter fraud. So Obama is stealing from seniors, from AIDS patients and everyone else… to fund his illegal alien base.

The Department of Health and Human Services is raiding several of its accounts, including money for Medicare, the Ryan White AIDS/HIV program and those for cancer and flu research to cover a shortfall in housing illegal youths pouring over the border at a rate of 255 a day.

Her sources said the following programs are being hit to pay for the illegals, about half of which the government will lose contact with.

— $14 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration, including $4.5 million from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and $2 million from the Maternal and Child Health program.

Well who needs to help AIDS patients or babies… when we can help illegal aliens invade the country.

$14 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for contagious disease prevention and treatment and other critical public health programs.

Not only do the migrant hordes spread disease, but funding to fight the diseases they cause is being cut.

$72 million from the National Institutes of Health, for research on cancer, diabetes, drug abuse, mental health, infectious diseases and much more.

— $8 million from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, for treatment and prevention programs.

— $8 million from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

— $39 million from the Children and Families Services Program.

Sorry cancer patients and Medicare patients and children… illegal aliens matter more than you do. To the left.

Forget Obama’s cancer “moonshot”. His real moonshot is the illegal alien invasion of America.

Categories: Department of Health and Human Services, Health care, Illegal immigrants, Obama and illegal immigration
Tags: , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Sweden: Rape Clinic for Men, Publicly Funded “Virginity Tests”

November 23, 2015

Sweden: Rape Clinic for Men, Publicly Funded “Virginity Tests,” The Gatestone Institute, Ingrid Carlqvist, November 23, 2015

  • Stockholm opened what is believed to be the world’s first rape clinic for men. More and more men are being subjected to homosexual rape in multicultural Sweden. 370 sex crimes against boys and men were registered in 2014, although the actual number of incidents is thought to be significantly higher.
  • Sweden’s strategy seems to be to keep the borders open and then redistribute the asylum seekers to EU countries that have an immigration policy completely different from Sweden’s open borders and generous welfare benefits. Whether other EU countries want to relieve Sweden’s burden remains to be seen.
  • Police documents show that 70% asylum seekers whose applications are rejected ignore the decision and stay illegally in Sweden.
  • The councilman argued that one should be able to talk about everything, so long as it is true. Two days later, he was forced to apologize and stress that he is not a racist.
  • Swedish authorities care more about the murderer’s future in his native Eritrea than they do about the risk that he will kill more Swedes.
  • Weapons smugglers have figured out a way to drive through customs checkpoints without being pulled over. The customs officers have orders never to stop cars with more passengers than there are customs officers present, according to the Lokaltidningen weekly newspaper.
  • The young men raped the girl, beat her and half-strangled her. The men, because they were believed to be under 18, were sentenced to juvenile detention. In six to nine months, they will be cruising Stockholm by night again.

On October 6, the radio program P4 Halland reported that an imam in Halmstad called homosexuality a “virus.” In a video posted on his mosque’s YouTube channel, the imam talked about raising children. He said that parents need to make sure their children have good immune systems, as there are many viruses floating around in society — one of them being homosexuality. The lecture was held in association with the Sobriety Movement’s Educational Activities (Nykterhetsrörelsens bildningsverksamhet). Its members immediately terminated their collaboration with the mosque.

Commenting in the Swedish media on the commotion that erupted after the imam’s statement, Mohamed Omar, an author and social commentator, wrote that this view of homosexuality is the rule rather than the exception in Swedish mosques: “As a Muslim, I have had the opportunity to visit mosques all over Sweden. Homophobia is the norm everywhere. I have heard far worse things than ‘homosexuality is a virus.’ In no mosque, I repeat nowhere, have I encountered teachings of tolerance for homosexuality.”

The imam’s statement was reported to the police, on suspicion of violating hate speech laws, but the investigation was immediately dropped. According to the prosecutor, the main purpose of the lecture was to talk about parenting, not to incite hatred against homosexuals.

October 7: TV4’s popular investigative journalism TV program, Cold Facts (Kalla Fakta), revealed that public health centers in areas with high immigrant populations perform so-called “virginity tests” on young girls. The practice was exposed when three young women of Middle Eastern descent were equipped with hidden cameras and sent undercover to three health centers. Another person, posing as the girls’ aunt, insisted on “virginity tests.” The doctors (several of whom were immigrants) ignored the loud protests from the girls, and examined them against their will. The doctors also offered, for a cash bribe, to issue “virginity certificates” for the girls.

October 12: Amid the snowballing “asylum anarchy” in Sweden, the government decided it was an appropriate time to hold something reminiscent of a revival meeting in Stockholm, under the slogan “Sweden Together.” Ingrid Lomfors, the new director of The Living History Forum, a Swedish public authority, opened the meeting by declaring that there is no such thing as Swedish culture — even though music from the Swedish historical musical Kristina from Duvemåla, written by ABBA members Björn Ulveaus and Benny Andersson, had been played moments before. As public reactions to Lomfors’s assertions were negative, even in the mainstream media, the next day she corrected herself, saying that what she meant was that there is no “unchanged” Swedish culture. Hanif Bali, a conservative Member of Parliament of Iranian descent, was one of many who protested loudly against Lomfors’s statement:

“To say that we should integrate people, even though there is nothing Swedish to integrate them into, I react very strongly against that. The Swedish culture is unique. Saying that there is nothing inherently Swedish just makes it all the more difficult for the people who have come here to become part of society.”

October 13: Three men were arrested as suspects in an August 24 hand grenade attack against police in the Stockholm suburb of Tumba. The hand grenade exploded a few feet from a police van, and the vehicle was riddled with over a hundred pieces of shrapnel. According to the police, it was just a fluke that no one was seriously injured or killed. The police also suspect there is a close connection between the Tumba attack and the armed robbery of a supermarket in Stockholm on October 12. A few days later, one of the three suspects, an 18-year-old man, was remanded on suspicion of armed robbery, aggravated larceny and attempted murder. The other two were released, but remain under suspicion.

1262 (1)A police van is riddled with shrapnel (left) from a hand grenade attack in Stockholm on August 24. The four policemen in the vehicle at the time could have been killed if the van had not been armored. At right, the Malmö police bomb squad disarms a hand grenade found in Landskrona, on September 22.

August 25: Local politicians in small southern county of Örkelljunga (population 10,000) wrote a desperate letter to the government; its signatories begged for help in solving the problems brought by the wave of asylum seekers. The Immigration Service has opened housing in Örkelljunga for about 250 asylum seekers in apartments, a former motel, and a number of private family residences — including housing for unaccompanied refugee children. An additional 100 units may open up in the Åsljungagården Hotel.

The local politicians wrote in their letter that crime rates have risen and that the police have been called on a number of occasions. Rape, assault, battery and shoplifting are mentioned, as is the temporary closing of the Centrumhuset youth center. At the largest housing facility, an old motel, there are 90 adults and children. The mix of various ethnic groups is said to have led to riots, threats and hunger strikes. The letter states:

“The situation affects everyone who lives and stays in our little county. The climate has grown tougher; many people feel scared and unsafe and with that comes the risk of increased xenophobia, antagonism and exclusion.”

The county swiftly received criticism from the mainstream media, and August 27 the Immigration Service let it be known that they have no intention of helping Örkelljunga. Immigration Service Press Officer Fredrik Bengtsson, quoted in the daily Helsingborgs Dagblad, was especially angry about the county’s criticism concerning different groups being placed together:

“If one thinks along the lines of placing asylum seekers any other way, you’re on a slippery slope. Separate housing for Christians and Muslims is not something we have in society. We have freedom of religion, and that applies to housing as well. You have to stop for a moment and think about it, because that’s not how we do things in society.”

August 26: Swedes heard the news that politicians in the nation’s three largest cities want to offer courses in “self-care and sexual matters” to gypsy women beggars. Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö are applying for 8.7 million kronor (just over $1 million USD) from the European Social Fund, for the project, and hope to reach 250 women. Twice a week they will attend class and get food, free health checkups and free hygiene- and sanitary articles and condoms. They will also receive compensation for “loss of work income.” Local politicians from opposition parties in Stockholm criticized the project strongly.

August 28: “Afrikas Horn,” an immigrants’ organization, reports another “Swedish” ISIS-warrior killed in battle. The man was in his thirties and originally from Somalia, but lived in the immigrant-heavy area of Vivalla in Örebro. The man was apparently one of three who have repeatedly traveled to join ISIS, but were twice intercepted in Turkey and sent back to Sweden. The man is the fourth resident of Örebro who has died as an ISIS terrorist. The chairman of Afrikas Horn tells the local paper Nerikes Allehanda that “the family is in mourning.”

August 28: Ali Khoddami, once an asylum seeker to Sweden, was sentenced to prison for defrauding an elderly woman. Khoddami worked in home care services and tricked Inga Lill, a 90-year-old woman suffering from dementia, out of millions of kronor. By pretending to be the woman’s friend, Khoddami was able to take over her bank accounts and move into her house, along with his family. He used her savings of two million kronor (about $240,000 USD) for luxury items, as well as several cars. Khoddami also managed to persuade Lill to sign over her house — her childhood home built by her father — to him. The house is apparently worth five million kronor ($590,000 USD). It was only after Khoddami put Lill, who has no living relatives, in a nursing home that the fraud was uncovered. The District Court sentenced Khoddami to 2.5 years in prison and fined him 7 million kronor ($830,000) plus interest and damages.

August 28: There were reports that people-smugglers have, over a short period of time, dumped 100 asylum seekers in the Gothenburg area. Pernilla Wallin, unit manager of the application unit at the Immigration Service for the Western Region, told Swedish Public Television that she never thought the situation would escalate like this and that the circumstances are “exceptional.” The Immigration Service is now desperately looking for “external contractors who want to bid on temporary housing for asylum seekers.”

Categories: Freedom, Health care, Hijrah, Homosexual rape, Human rights, Islamic culture, Islamic invasion, Islamic perversions, Multiculturalism, Muslim assimilation, Sweden
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Germany: Migration Crisis Becomes Public Health Crisis

November 8, 2015

Germany: Migration Crisis Becomes Public Health Crisis, The Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, November 8, 2015

  • German hospitals are increasing security to protect doctors and nurses from violent attacks by migrants who are unhappy with the medical treatment they are receiving.
  • Critics are warning that German taxpayers will end up paying billions of euros to provide healthcare for a never-ending wave of asylum seekers. This is in addition to the billions of euros already being spent to provide newcomers with food, clothing and shelter.
  • In addition to the massive economic and social costs, as well as the burden of increased crime, including a rape epidemic, Germans are now facing the risk of being exposed to exotic diseases — and tuberculosis.
  • Roughly 5% of asylum seekers are carrying resistant germs. In real numbers, this works out to around 75,000 newcomers with highly infectious diseases. — Dr. Jan-Thorsten Gräsner, director of the Institute for Rescue and Emergency Medicine.
  • Twenty types of vaccines are now in short supply, and 16 others are no longer available at all. Because of production bottlenecks, some vaccines will not become available until 2017.
  • Muslim women refuse to be treated by male doctors, and many Muslim men refuse to be treated by females. — Max Kaplan, director of the Bavarian Medical Board.
  • German media outlets are downplaying the extent of the healthcare problem, apparently to avoid spreading fear or provoking anti-immigrant sentiments.

The influx of more than one million asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East is placing unprecedented strain on Germany’s healthcare system.

Hospitals, clinics and emergency rooms across Germany are being filled to capacity with migrants suffering maladies of all kinds, and medical personnel, including thousands of volunteers, are increasingly complaining of burnout.

Diseases are also reappearing that have not been seen in Germany for years. German public health officials are now on the lookout for Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever, diphtheria, Ebola, hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, measles, meningitis, mumps, polio, scabies, tetanus, tuberculosis, typhus and whooping cough. As refugee shelters fill to overflowing, doctors are also on high alert for mass outbreaks of influenza and Norovirus.

Compounding the challenge, tens of thousands of migrants arriving in Germany — particularly migrant children — have not been immunized, and German doctors are finding that needed vaccines are not readily available due to a lack of supply. Some German parents are panicking that there are not enough vaccines to immunize their own children.

Many migrants are also suffering from a host of traumas and mental illnesses. According to the Chamber of German Psychotherapists (Bundespsychotherapeutenkammer), at least half of all migrants arriving in Germany have psychological problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and roughly 40% have contemplated suicide.

German hospitals are also being forced to hire a virtual army of interpreters so that doctors can communicate with asylum seekers, who speak dozens of languages, dialects and variants.

At the same time, German hospitals are increasing security to protect doctors and nurses from violent attacks by migrants who are unhappy with the medical treatment they are receiving.

Critics are warning that German taxpayers will end up paying billions of euros to provide healthcare for a never-ending wave of asylum seekers. This is in addition to the billions of euros already being spent to provide newcomers with food, clothing and shelter.

Many say the German government failed fully to consider the unforeseen consequences of opening the door to so many migrants. In addition to the massive economic and social costs, as well as the burden of increased crime, including a rape epidemic, Germans are now facing the risk of being exposed to exotic diseases.

German media outlets are downplaying the extent of the healthcare problem, apparently to avoid spreading fear or provoking anti-immigrant sentiments. But a growing number of German healthcare professionals are sounding the alarm.

In an interview with Die Welt, Dr. Michael Melter, the chief physician at the University Hospital Regensburg, said that migrants are arriving at his hospital with illnesses that are hardly ever seen in Germany anymore. “Some of the ailments I have not seen for 20 or 25 years,” he said, “and many of my younger colleagues have actually never seen them.”

Marc Schreiner, director of international relations for the German Hospital Federation (Deutschen Krankenhausgesellschaft), has echoed Melter’s concerns:

“In the clinics, it is becoming increasingly common to see patients with diseases that were considered to have been eradicated in Germany, such as scabies. These diseases must be reliably diagnosed, which is a challenge.”

Schreiner said that in cases of highly contagious diseases, including tuberculosis, patients must be quarantined, an expensive procedure, the costs of which are paid for by German taxpayers.

According to Schreiner, about 15% of the newly arriving migrants require immediate medical treatment. With 1.5 million asylum seekers expected to arrive in Germany in 2015, this means that 225,000 migrants will have an urgent need for medical attention.

Siegfried Hasenbein, director of the Bavarian Hospital Association (Bayerische Krankenhausgesellschaft), estimates that in 2015, between 25,000 and 30,000 migrants will be treated in Bavarian hospitals alone. In addition, this year between 75,000 and 90,000 migrants will receive ambulatory or outpatient care.

According to Hasenbein, these numbers appear insignificant when compared to the three million hospital visits that normally occur in Bavaria every year. The problem arises in that the migration crisis is straining the Bavarian healthcare system unevenly, with hospitals in migrant “hotspots” such as Deggendorf, Ingolstadt and Passau bearing the brunt of medical care.

Markus Beier, director of the Bavarian Association of Family Physicians (Bayerischer Hausärzteverband), says that doctors in areas with large concentrations of asylum seekers are being called upon all hours of the night and day, making it impossible for them to provide anyone with superior levels of care.

Max Kaplan, director of the Bavarian Medical Board (Bayerische Landesärztekammer), says that the challenges associated with medical treatment for migrants are exacerbated by language and cultural barriers, which are “tiresome, time consuming and sometimes impossible to overcome.” Adding insult to injury, he says, many Muslim women refuse to be treated by male doctors, and many Muslim men refuse to be treated by females.

In an effort to prevent diseases from spreading, Kaplan has called on German public health officials to order medical exams for all asylum seekers at the initial point of entry into Germany, before they are sent to different parts of the country. “This is in the best interest of the refugees, and also of the native population,” he said.

In a November 2 interview with Spiegel TV, Dr. Ralf Mütterlein, director of the Pulmonary Clinic (Klinik für Lungen- und Bronchialheilkunde) in Parsberg, estimated that between 8,000 and 10,000 asylum seekers in Germany have tuberculosis, but only a small fraction these are currently in quarantine.

Migrants who are taken to Mütterlein’s clinic are held in quarantine for up to 18 months at a time to prevent the disease from spreading to the population at large. The costs to German taxpayers are astronomical: Between 10,000 and 12,000 euros per migrant per month. Over 18 months, the total cost often exceeds 200,000 euros per migrant.

1333A migrant from Africa is shown in a Spiegel TV news segment from this month, being treated in a special unit for the involuntary quarantine of tuberculosis patients, at Parsberg District Hospital #1, in Bavaria.

Meanwhile, a report by Die Welt describes efforts by German health officials to contain the spread of so-called resistant germs:

“Physicians are currently on high alert, because with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees, infectious diseases could enter the country. This is not hysteria. It is simply a challenge our healthcare system has not faced for many decades.

“There is a danger that a refugee is ‘colonized’ — as doctors call it — with dangerous germs. Every person carries bacterial germs in and on the skin. For healthy people they are harmless. They become a problem when they spread among critically ill and immunocompromised patients in a clinic.

“The problem: In the refugees’ countries of origin, resistant germs may spread more often than in Germany. So a refugee is immediately tested upon admission to a German clinic. Only when it is certain that there is no danger, it the patient moved to a shared room.”

Dr. Jan-Thorsten Gräsner, director of the Institute for Rescue and Emergency Medicine (Institut für Rettungs- und Notfallmedizin), estimates that roughly 5% of asylum seekers are carrying resistant germs. In real numbers, this works out to around 75,000 newcomers with highly infectious diseases.

The Berlin-based Robert Koch Institute, a key governmental agency for the safeguarding of public health in Germany, has advised healthcare professionals, as well as those who are working as volunteers in refugee shelters, to update their immunizations.

But the Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedicines (Paul-Ehrlich-Institut), an agency of the Federal Ministry of Health, has warned that 20 types of vaccines are now in short supply, and 16 others are no longer available at all. Because of production bottlenecks, some vaccines will not become available until 2017.

Stefan Derix, director of the Chamber of Pharmacists North Rhine (Apothekerkammer Nordrhein), said the shortage of vaccines is due to the massive influx of asylum seekers. He said the Ministry of Health normally orders vaccine supplies one year in advance, and that no one in the government had anticipated that Germany would be taking in so many migrants this year.

Dr. Wolfram Hartmann, president of the Cologne-based Professional Association of Pediatricians (Berufsverband der Kinder- und Jugendärzte), has warned that many of the vaccines needed to immunize both native German children and migrant children for diphtheria, polio, tetanus and whooping cough are not available, neither in Germany nor in any other European country. He also said that basic vaccines against measles, mumps, rubella and varicella are in short supply.

In a statement, Hartmann wrote:

“We cannot provide native German children and refugees alike with the basic vaccines. The vaccine shortage, which is the responsibility of the pharmaceutical companies, must urgently be made a top priority of the Health Minister! Children have a right to vaccinations, especially for chronically ill children who need timely vaccinations against flu, especially if they are housed in communal accommodations.

“The federal government must now act urgently and enforce the right of children to vaccination. The vaccine supply is just as much of a national responsibility as is the supply of physicians.”

Kordula Schulz-Asche, a politician with the Greens Party, warned against holding migrants responsible for the vaccine shortage. “The current tense vaccine situation must not be misused to stir up public opinion against refugees,” she said.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, hospitals are requiring their personnel to attend courses on how to treat patients with exotic illnesses hardly ever seen in Germany. Hospital workers in Bielefeld and Siegburg are said to be groaning under the strain of having to examine up to 80 migrants a day for tuberculosis. “The workload has increased tremendously,” a worker told Westdeutscher Rundfunk, a public broadcaster. Other hospitals in the state lack sufficient personnel and equipment, including the x-ray machines needed to examine patients with tuberculosis.

In Lower Saxony, public health officials, fearful of a mass outbreak of influenza, are struggling with the logistics of vaccinating tens of thousands of asylum seekers housed in refugee shelters across the state. With more than 1,000 new migrants arriving in Lower Saxony every day, initial medical exams of newcomers are backlogged by weeks, a period during which undetected diseases can spread.

In Berlin, police were forced to apologize for recommending that asylum seekers suffering from scabies, a highly contagious skin disease, be required to wear armbands to distinguish them from migrants who are healthy. The plan was for them to wear armbands with the capital letter ‘K’ forKrätze (German for scabies); their immediate family were to have worn armbands with the capital letter ‘A’ for Angehörigen (German for next of kin).

Meanwhile, reports of health-related scares, especially those involving tuberculosis, have become a daily occurrence in Germany.

In Krefeld, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, a 27-year-old migrant was diagnosed withtuberculosis. He was being held in quarantine at a local pulmonary clinic. In Lünen, also in North Rhine-Westphalia, four migrants were diagnosed with tuberculosis.

In Nattheim, a town in Baden-Württemberg, asylum seekers at a refugee shelter underwent mass immunization after a child at the shelter fell ill with chickenpox. In Ellwangen, also in Baden-Württemberg, an asylum seeker diagnosed with tuberculosis escaped from a hospital. He remains at large.

In Gransee, a town in the eastern state of Brandenburg, a migrant was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

In Würzburg, more than 400 asylum seekers were mass immunized for chicken pox, diphtheria, measles, mumps, polio and tetanus. In Heidenheim, a town in Baden-Württemberg, public health officials are preparing for potential outbreaks of influenza and Norovirus at local refugee shelters this winter.

In Cologne, police cordoned off a refugee shelter housing more than 1,000 migrants in the Chorweiler district after a male refugee from Africa showed symptoms of Ebola. The man, who was coughing up blood for more than three days before anyone called a doctor, was rushed to a local hospital, where he was diagnosed with a gastrointestinal illness. Earlier, the same refugee shelter was the scene of an E. coli scare potentially affecting 800 migrants.

In Bochum, a 16-year-old migrant from Guinea showing symptoms of Ebola was placed in quarantine. In Saxony, public health officials are now testing all incoming asylum seekers forEbola.

In Düsseldorf, a 30-year-old migrant from Algeria was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was being held in quarantine at a local hospital. Municipal health officials say that in 2014, there were 50 confirmed cases of tuberculosis in the city. In 2015, that number was surpassed in August, before migrants began arriving en masse in September and October.

In Tegernsee, a town in Bavaria, a 23-year-old migrant from Eritrea who was diagnosed with tuberculosis escaped from a refugee shelter. Local officials failed to inform the public about the incident for nearly one month, until they were confronted by a local newspaper, the Münchner Merkur. Wolfgang Rzehak, a local politician with the Greens Party, justified the media blackout: “We have to find a middle road between informing the public and not becoming a panic machine.”

In Frankfurt, a 33-year-old migrant from Bulgaria who was diagnosed with tuberculosis escaped from a hospital and remains at large. Again, local officials kept quiet about the incident, until someone leaked information about it to the German newspaper, Bild.

In Berlin, a schoolteacher in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district was diagnosed with tuberculosis; doctors say he was probably infected by one of his students. Also in Berlin, security guards at a refugee shelter in the Lichterfelde-Süd district locked nearly a dozen migrants in a bathroom after they were suspected of having tuberculosis. They were later transferred to a local hospital.

In Hamburg, public health officials quarantined a refugee shelter in the Jenfeld district after an outbreak of scabies. Also in Hamburg, a 17-year-old migrant from Sierra Leone was rushed to a local hospital and quarantined on suspicion that he had Ebola — just three days after arriving in Germany. Separately, at a refugee shelter in the Bahrenfeld district of Hamburg, firefighters wearing head-to-toe Ebola protection suits escorted migrants suspected of having Ebola to a local hospital.

In Bremen, after an asylum seeker was diagnosed with tuberculosis and doctors warned of the risk of contagion, all 200 migrants housed at refugee shelter on Steinsetzer Straße underwent chest x-rays to test for the disease.

In Munich, health officials are expecting more than 350 new cases of tuberculosis in 2015. The increase is being attributed to the large number of asylum seekers arriving in the city.

In Stuttgart, an average of 145 asylum seekers housed at the city’s convention center seek medical attention every day. Common maladies include measles, chickenpox, flu infections, dysentery and scabies caused by mites.

In Rheingau-Taunus, a district in the state of Hesse, public health officials say they need more money and medical personnel to deal with the influx of migrants at 60 local refugee shelters. The health department expects to treat more than 1,500 newcomers this year, including a large number of children who lack proper immunization. The department has reported 60 cases of scabies and tuberculosis. According to Monika Merkert, a local health inspector: “The newly arriving asylum seekers bring diseases that occur only rarely in Germany.”

Categories: Asylum seekers, Germany, Health care, Hospitals in Germany, Islamic culture, Islamic immigration, Islamic invasion
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment