http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05328/611846.stmChildren's Hospital of Pittsburgh gave the green light yesterday for bringing a 7-year-old Iraqi war victim to the facility for reconstructive surgery, and the news is making Thanksgiving Day even brighter for the child's American sponsors.
The boy, Abdul Hakim Ismael, was wounded last year in the city of Fallujah. His family said he was hit by fire from an American air strike, leaving the left side of his face severely disfigured -- blinded in one eye with damaged eyelid, socket, jaw and cheek, making it difficult for him to eat.
Three local surgeons -- Dr. Tonya Stefko, Dr. William Chung and Dr. Fred Deleyiannis -- and an oculist, Walter Tillman, offered over the summer to treat Hakim at no cost. Children's initially agreed to absorb half the hospital bill, which could run into several hundred thousand dollars. But that left Hakim's sponsors in a bind -- afraid to risk bringing him here unless the costs were covered, unable to determine the costs until they brought him here, and afraid that the final tally would wreck their efforts to assist other children.
But Children's Hospital had a dilemma of its own -- balancing the potential expense of this case against the cost of its ongoing mission to treat children in the 12-county area. The institution's Free Care Fund is reserved for local families and cannot be tapped for Hakim, so the hospital would have to absorb any uncovered expenses from its own finances.
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