{"id":7954,"date":"2016-01-27T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T06:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/?p=7954"},"modified":"2019-11-20T11:19:18","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T09:19:18","slug":"01-27-08","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/01-27-08\/","title":{"rendered":"08. Accompanying a Sick Person or Woman in Labor to the Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">A patient who is rushed to the hospital generally needs a chaperone, to offer support and to ensure that he is given proper care by the medical staff. Unfortunately, due to heavy volume of patients at a hospital, patients who are alone are sometimes overlooked. Therefore, if a family finds out that a relative has been hospitalized with a serious injury or illness and is alone in the hospital, one of the family members must travel there, even on Shabbat.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Similarly, a woman in labor must be accompanied to the hospital. Even if she does not request, someone \u2013 her husband, mother, or doula \u2013 should travel with her. If the woman in labor or the patient arrives at the hospital without a chaperone, it is permitted to call someone to travel to the hospital. Even though caring for a woman in labor is straightforward and familiar, there is still a concern that she will panic and endanger herself. Therefore, one may desecrate Shabbat on her behalf and do whatever he may do for a dangerously sick person (SA 330:1; MB\u00a0<em>ad loc.\u00a0<\/em>3; BHL s.v. \u201cu-madlikin\u201d).<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Recently, some women request the presence of both their husbands and their mothers at the hospital. Some also ask their doulas to attend. Since this is not a lifesaving medical necessity, only one chaperone may travel along \u2013 her husband, her mother, or her doula. Only in an unusual circumstance, such as when a woman becomes hysterical and insists that both her husband and her mother must accompany her, may they both do so. Similarly, if she experiences anxiety and demands that they call her doula, the doula may be called. Nevertheless, one may not plan for more than one person to accompany her on Shabbat.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">Others disagree and maintain that one should do whatever the woman in labor wants, even if she is not hysterical. If she wants her husband, mother, and doula to come with her, they all travel along, to put her mind at ease. According to this approach, one may even make a detour in order to pick them up or call them to request that they make their own way to the hospital. However, this would seem to be excessive, and it does not legitimize driving on Shabbat. The widespread custom is that one person accompanies a woman in labor. However, if the drive is long and the husband is driving, the mother or doula may come along as well, since sometimes another person is needed to help the woman during the drive.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\">If the woman in labor has small children at home, one must prearrange for neighbors to care for the children in the event that the parents must travel on Shabbat. However, if they live in a remote location, or if the neighbors are bad or untrustworthy people, with whom it dangerous to leave children, and leaving the children home alone would also be dangerous, the children may travel with the parents to the hospital. One may also make a slight detour in order to drop them off with a family that can take care of them.<sup><a id=\"_te01ftnref27_8\" class=\"aup1\" href=\"#_te01ftn27_8\">[8]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<div>\n<hr size=\"1\" \/>\n<div>\n<h5><a id=\"_te01ftn27_8\" href=\"#_te01ftnref27_8\">[8]<\/a>.\u00a0One may violate Torah prohibitions in\u00a0order to accompany a sick person or a woman in labor, just as one may light a fire for a woman in labor even when it is not\u00a0truly\u00a0necessary (SA 330:1; MB\u00a0<em>ad<\/em>\u00a0<em>loc<\/em>. 3; BHL s.v. \u201cu-madlikin\u201d). This is even more\u00a0relevant today,\u00a0when the generally accepted wisdom is that the patient needs someone to accompany him in the hospital in order to\u00a0ensure\u00a0that\u00a0he\u00a0receives\u00a0proper care (<em>Nishmat Avraham<\/em>, O\u0124 278:4 with n.\u00a029, and 330:6 citing R. Yehoshua Neuwirth; R. Yoel Katan in\u00a0<em>Assia<\/em>\u00a09). If a non-Jew is available\u00a0to\u00a0drive the children to family or friends, one may ask him to do so, even if\u00a0the neighbors can watch the children\u00a0in a pinch.\u00a0If it is not necessary to take a detour or make an extra trip to pick up the mother or the doula, even if the woman in labor is not\u00a0completely hysterical,\u00a0if she demands that\u00a0they travel with\u00a0her\u00a0even on\u00a0Shabbat,\u00a0they may be picked up in a pinch. However,\u00a0one may not\u00a0plan for them to travel with her, because in fact there is no need for more than one person\u00a0to\u00a0escort her.<\/p>\n<p>A woman in labor who wants to rely on the lenient opinion and have two people accompany her\u00a0must\u00a0be\u00a0honest\u00a0with herself\u00a0regarding\u00a0how\u00a0much she truly needs\u00a0the extra person.\u00a0She should imagine that, for example, she went into labor on\u00a0a\u00a0Shabbat that her mother or doula happened to be hosting large numbers of guests for a son\u2019s\u00a0<em>aufruf<\/em>,\u00a0when traveling to the hospital would mean deserting\u00a0her\u00a0guests until after Shabbat\u00a0and\u00a0missing\u00a0her son being called up to the Torah.\u00a0If, under\u00a0such circumstances, the woman in labor\u00a0would\u00a0still demand that her mother or doula accompany her in addition to her husband, and\u00a0they\u00a0would\u00a0still\u00a0agree to go,\u00a0this\u00a0indicates\u00a0that they really do consider\u00a0their role in her childbirth potentially lifesaving, and they may accompany her according to the lenient opinion.\u00a0However, if under such circumstances the woman in labor would forego their presence, it indicates\u00a0that\u00a0she does not consider their role to be life-saving. Accordingly, even on a regular Shabbat, she should\u00a0suffice\u00a0with one\u00a0chaperone. The ambulance driver does not count as\u00a0a chaperone,\u00a0as he will not stay in the hospital with the patient or woman in labor (see\u00a0<em>Igrot Moshe<\/em>, O\u0124 1:132;\u00a0<em>Or Le-Tzi<\/em><em>yon<\/em>\u00a02:36:23; BHL 330:1, s.v. \u201cu-madlikin\u201d;\u00a0<em>Yalkut Yosef<\/em>\u00a0330:9). It is proper not to rely on the lenient opinion at all, because adding another\u00a0chaperone\u00a0has no lifesaving value; the merit of keeping Shabbat\u00a0is more effective.<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A patient who is rushed to the hospital generally needs a chaperone, to offer support and to ensure that he is given proper care by the medical staff. Unfortunately, due to heavy volume of patients at a hospital, patients who are alone are sometimes overlooked. Therefore, if a family finds out that a relative has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-27"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>08. Accompanying a Sick Person or Woman in Labor to the Hospital - Peninei Halakha<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/01-27-08\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"08. 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