Heart Function at 22%, Inoperable Cancer — and a Line in the Health Basket That Denied Mikhail Treatment

“I am reaching out to everyone who can help save my husband’s life,” begins the letter we received this week. It was written by Natalia. Her husband’s name is Mikhail.

Mikhail is 67 years old. He has 100% disability. He is decent, quiet, intelligent — the kind of person you want to describe simply as “real,” with no need to add anything else, because it already says enough. A husband, a father, a grandfather. He worked all his life. He loved photography and history. In his younger years, he was published in magazines — creating humorous crossword puzzles, writing poems, composing scripts for KVN, and performing in it himself. When you read the way Natalia writes about him, you catch yourself thinking that this is the kind of person you would want to sit next to in silence.

In 1986, back in that former life, Mikhail received a heavy dose of radiation after the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Some time later, Crohn’s disease appeared. Part of his intestine was removed, followed by surgery after surgery, rehabilitation after rehabilitation. Then came decades of more or less stable life. He and Natalia raised their children. They traveled the world. They lived that ordinary, good life that everyone longs for — and almost no one knows how to value while they still have it.

First came a massive heart attack. Three stents. The doctors pulled him through. They had barely exhaled when they found a non-healing wound near his tailbone. A biopsy followed. Squamous cell carcinoma, already growing into the internal organs. Inoperable.

Chemotherapy and radiation nearly killed Mikhail before the cancer could. His kidneys failed — two nephrostomy tubes had to be placed. But once again, the doctors pulled him through. He began coming back — to his children, to his granddaughter, to Natalia. They started making plans again.

And then, during another examination, a new lesion was found.

Chemotherapy is no longer possible. Mikhail’s heart is functioning at 22%, and his kidneys are barely coping. He simply would not survive it.

There is another treatment. Biological therapy. It targets cancer cells directly and can work even with inoperable tumors. He needs to receive it twice a month, for life. The medication is included in the health basket — and one of the criteria directly matches Mikhail’s case.

Leumit refused.

The formal reason: the health basket specifies cancer of the rectum and colon. Mikhail’s colon, rectum, and part of his small intestine were removed many years ago — because of the very Crohn’s disease that developed after his Chernobyl radiation exposure. The tumor grew in the area where these organs normally exist. In Mikhail’s body, they are no longer there. According to the wording of the document, he does not qualify.

In other words, a man whose current condition is a direct consequence of Chernobyl and Crohn’s disease was denied treatment precisely because Crohn’s destroyed the very organs listed in that line of the health basket.

His treating physician is preparing an appeal. But an appeal cannot be filed on nothing — they need to show positive response to the treatment. And to show a response, the treatment must begin. Now. The first injection is needed in the coming days.

One injection — every two weeks. 12,000 shekels per month. We need to hold on for six months — the window during which Mikhail can receive the first results and apply for reconsideration by the health fund. Including the costs of managing the campaign, the total needed is around 80,000 shekels.

After that — the health fund. After that, Natalia and Mikhail will manage on their own.

Right now — they cannot.

If we do not step in here, Leumit will win not out of malice, but because of a line in a document that failed to account for a person with such a medical history. And Mikhail will die because of a technical formulation. This must not happen. Not to him. Not to a man who survived Chernobyl, Crohn’s disease, a massive heart attack, inoperable cancer, kidney failure — and still wants to live and watch his granddaughter grow.

Without us, Natalia cannot save her husband. With us — Mikhail has a chance.

Let’s give him that chance.