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Baby retained over bill

Chris McGreal

Jerusalem: Israel's Justice Ministry is deciding whether to prosecute a Jerusalem hospital that held a new-born baby for two months as collateral because its mother was unable to pay her bill. The Ministry intervened last week to force the Moqassed hospital in East Jerusalem to give the infant to its mother and is examining whether to charge it with false imprisonment. The mother, who is Arab but has not been named, gave birth to triplets prematurely in January. As the children's father is a Palestinian resident of the West Bank, the hospital demanded payment of 10,000 shekels ($2,120) because it said it was not certain of recovering the costs of treating the babies from Israel's national insurance fund even though their mother is a legal resident of Jerusalem. When the woman said she was unable to pay, the hospital said it would keep one of the three children, a girl, as a ``guarantee'' until the money was found. The parents went to the Justice Ministry.

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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