Last update - 00:00 07/02/2007
Medical panels use degrading test to determine disabilities
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
Medical committees charged with determining the extent to which a person is handicapped employ the "fall test" from time to time, in which the patient is told to stand or walk in order to see if he falls.
Eti Ozna, for instance, has suffered from a number of illnesses for the past 14 years, including severe osteoporosis. In June 2004, a medical committee ruled that she is 100 percent handicapped. The National Insurance Institute appealed the decision, however, and Ozna was called to appear before an additional committee six months later.
She arrived at the committee in a wheelchair. "The doctor told me he wants to try and stand me up. I told him I can't stand, that my legs fail me," she said. "He said 'don't worry, I'm holding you.' He really did hold me, but then let go. I fell flat on the floor - a leg here, a leg there. I cried."
Ozna's daughter Bat-El, who was 15 at the time, accompanied her to the hearing, and said she will never forget how her mother lay on the floor and cried.
"Why torment us? There are documents, X-rays, hospitalization reports," Ozna said. "I'm not asking for pity, just what I deserve. It is terrible pain and humiliation."
Following the incident, Ozna went to the emergency room, and the medical report from that day describes bruises and other injuries. She filed a complaint with the police, but the case was closed due to a lack of public interest.
Following the exam, Ozna's disability was lowered to 60 percent, and as a result, she cannot purchase a van specially fitted for electric wheelchairs. Ozna must ask her husband or son to lift her into her car, and if they aren't home, she does not leave the house.
Beni Or, who was paralyzed by polio as a child, said he was brought before a medical committee and the physical therapist wanted to see if he was entitled to an electric wheelchair. "She told me to lean forward in my chair until I fell and then she told me to get up," he said. "I couldn't. It was very humiliating."
A. was 11 years old when it happened to her. "I was summoned to the committee and they said 'mom and dad don't need to be here, there isn't space,'" she said. "They left. The doctors said 'don't worry.' Two of them came and said 'now we'll start to walk,' lifted me up let me go and dropped me on the floor. I started to cry."
Although it happened 21 years ago, she still remembers everything. "What did they think, that an 11-year-old is faking?" she added. Yoav Kraiem, from the Disabled Persons Organization, said he has accompanied friends to the committees and witnessed the "fall test" firsthand. "If you start to fall, and the doctor is a good guy and catches you in time, you don't fall," he said. "If he isn't a good guy and is talking on the phone, you fall."
The Health Ministry said in response that a patient can refuse any examination: "In the context of the regulation the subject is asked to demonstrate how he walks, with or without the aid of apparatuses. In certain cases, with the support of the examiner, the subject is asked to try to stand, in a way that does not endanger him or his health."