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Survivors lack money for long hospital stays By Ruth Sinai Itzhak Widder says that his father now weighs the same as when he was liberated from the Mauthausen death camp in 1945 - 41 kilograms. Shalom Widder, 90, has been at Hartzfeld Geriatric Hospital in Gedera for the past month. He has lost the ability to swallow, so relies on an abdominal feeding tube. Two weeks ago, his sons got a bill for their father's hospitalization - NIS 97 per day. They were going to pay, until they saw two large signs in the hospital's corridors thanking the Claims Commission for its generous donation for refurbishing the wards. The Claims Commission is the body in charge of assets belonging to Jews from the former East Germany whose heirs have not been located. Each year, it donates some $8 million to renovate internal medicine departments at hospitals with elderly patients. Advertisement "The Claims Conference donates money to the hospital, to the state, and they want NIS 3,000 a month from my father, a Holocaust survivor who never received a cent from the state?" asked Itzhak Widder. Shalom Widder is not the only survivor in this predicament. As Hartzfeld's management pointed out, the National Health Insurance Law requires a co-payment of NIS 97 per diem for long-term hospitalization. But recently, the Holocaust Survivors Welfare Fund has been fielding more and more requests from survivors' children who are having difficulty meeting hospital bills. Yesterday, the fund's director, Moshe Shechori, appealed to the Finance Ministry to let him help these survivors and their families. Shechori hopes that grants will be available in 2009. Itzhak Widder's parents immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1964, thereby missing the eligibility deadline for receiving either reparations from Germany or a disability pension from the treasury. Like several thousand other survivors, they fell between the bureaucratic cracks, leaving them ineligible for any benefit until recently. Pursuant to a government decision last year, Shalom Widder began receiving a monthly stipend of NIS 1,000 three months ago. (His wife died two years ago.) This, together with his old-age pension and income supplement from the National Insurance Institute, comes to a total of NIS 2,200. Itzhak Widder took the hospital bill to Avraham Pressler, the Claims Conference representative in Israel, who promised to help. Pressler applied to the hospital, but was informed that Widder is not entitled to a payment exemption, because his sons' income exceeds the exemption limit. Itzhak Widder, a disabled veteran, says his monthly income is NIS 4,500. His brother is also disabled. They reported as much to the hospital and the Claims Conference. But they got a call this week from the hospital's billing department demanding payment and warning that legal steps would be taken otherwise. "My father was deprived all these years. I served the country for 26 years in the army. I was wounded in the Yom Kippur War. Is there no sensitivity? They want to suck Dad's blood dry," Itzhak Widder said. Then, he burst into tears. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Hezbollah abduction How the Lebanese militia captured two IDF reservists in 2006, illustrated in pictures. Kuntar's crimes Israeli YouTube video details the 1979 terror attack perpetrated by Samir Kuntar.

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