Free healthcare?

Hi,

Preface: The Torah requires an assailant to pay for his victim's medical care. (Shemot 21:19)

"If the assailant says, 'I will bring you a doctor for nothing,' his victim is entitled to reply, 'A doctor who heals for nothing is worth nothing.'"

(Talmud, Bava Kama 85a)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Painkillers which may endanger a patient's health

Hi,

"Whether the medical means are pills or injections, so long as they are given by a doctor with the goal of lessening his great suffering, one may give them to the patient even though they will also harm him and they could bring his death closer. It appears that this is part of the Torah's permission to the physician to heal..."

כל היכא שתכשירי הרפואה הניתנים, הן בצורת כדורים והן בצורת זריקות, נתנים המה ע"י הרופא במטרה כדי להקל מעליו יסוריו הקשים מותר לו לתת לחולה, הגם שמאידך המה מזיקים לו ועלולים גם לקרב יותר את מיתתו, כי נראה שזהו ג"כ בכלל נתינת הרשות שנתנה התורה לרופא לרפאות... 

(Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, Tzitz Eliezer 13:87)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

Testing for the BRCA gene

Hi,

"Genetic testing, including testing for BRCAI and BRCA2, should be regarded as halakhically mandated in circumstances in which medical science believes that the results are likely to affect treatment in a manner that will enhance longevity anticipation or well-being. Certainly, a person identified as being at risk for a specific disease is obligated to pursue all available measures in order to ward off the disease or to diagnose its presence while the disease is yet in an incipient stage and still amenable to cure."

(Rabbi J. David Bleich, Genetic Screening, Tradition 34:1 (2000) pg. 77)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

The obligation to test for the Tay-Sachs gene

Hi,

"Since it is easy to check, one should realize that failure to check one's self would be like closing one's eyes before that which one could see. G-d forbid, such an event would cause the child's parents extraordinary pain, and so it would be appropriate for a man who wished to wed a woman to test himself. It would be good to publicize this in newspapers and other media, to alert people that there is such a test."

כיון שעתה נעשה זה באופן קל לבדוק יש לדון שאם אינו בודק את עצמו הוא כסגירת העינים לראות מה שאפשר לראות, ומכיון שאם ח"ו אירע דבר כזה הוא להורי הילד צער גדול מאד מן הראוי למי שצריך לישא אשה לבדוק את עצמו. ולכן טוב לפרסם הדבר ע"י עתונים ואופנים שידעו העולם שאיכא בדיקה כזו. 

(Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Igrot Moshe Even haEzer 4:10)

Have a great day,
Mordechai

We learn from everyone, in all fields of knowledge

Hi,

In the following passage, Rav Waldenberg explains why a physician may discuss a patient's case with his students while on hospital rounds, without concern for the Torah's prohibition against talebearing:

"There is another reason [to permit this]. In every realm of knowledge, there exists the principle of, 'I have learned more from my students than from all others.' By explaining to them, and from the questions they ask, it is not rare for the physician to awaken to some new facet which will help in the patient's healing. Therefore, this does involve some benefit for the patient."

(Rav Eliezer Waldenberg, Tzitz Eliezer 13:81:2)

Have a great day,
Mordechai