An 8-day-old baby from northern Israel had part of penis severed last week while being ritually circumcised my a mohel.
Israeli Baby Has Penis Severed In Circumcision Accident
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
An 8-day-old baby from northern Israel had part of penis severed last week while being ritually circumcised my a mohel, Israel Hayom reported.
The baby was rushed to Rambam Hospital in Haifa and underwent penis reattachment surgery, which doctors say was successful.
"These kind of procedures are relatively rare. The operation was a success and we are optimistic about the baby's chances of recovery, but it is still too soon to know what the ramifications will be for the baby. We are monitoring his condition closely,” the senior pediatric urologist at Ramabam, Benjamin Hardak said.
Hardak and other physicians also praised the family for immediately placing the severed penis on ice, which increased the chances for a successful reattachment.
The baby was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at the Ruth Rappaport Children's Hospital, which is part of the Rambam Helathcare Center’s campus.
According to Israel’s Ministry of Health, complications following circumcisions occur in less than 1% of cases. The most common of those complications is, the ministry says, excessive bleeding.
But there are strong questions about how the government collects and analyzes its data, and the Ministry of Health, which is now under again under haredi control, has gone through previous periods when haredim have controlled it. Add to that the willingness of doctors who treat the haredi community to underreport more minor complications and the haredi community’s desire to hide as many of these complications as possible and the actual number of complications from circumcisions could easily be higher than the government claims.
The name of the mohel involved in this latest accident and other details of what went wrong have not been made public. Mohels in Israel are licensed by the government through the country's haredi-controlled chief rabbinate and are themselves Modern Orthodox, Zionist Orthodox or haredi.