Widow Wins Recognition After Veteran’s Service-Related Disability Was Linked to Self-Neglect

An appeals committee in Rishon LeZion, acting under the Disabled Persons Law, recently recognized a woman as a bereaved IDF widow even though her husband died of lung cancer, apparently with no direct link to the service-connected disability he had been awarded. Committee chair Judge Rivka Arad accepted that the veteran’s disability, caused by a 1990 self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head during military service, led to self-neglect that contributed to his early death.

The widow had asked the Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation Department to recognize her under the Families of Soldiers Killed in Action Law, but her claim was rejected on the grounds that the husband’s acknowledged disability did not cause the delayed diagnosis of his cancer. In her appeal, she argued a chain of causation between the disability, her husband’s self-neglect, and the late discovery of the disease. She said it was extremely difficult to get him to seek medical care, telling the committee, “Only sometimes, when he agreed to, and by force,” and added that she had to beg him to see a doctor and sometimes called an ambulance when he refused help. Her daughters gave similar testimony.

The Defense Ministry maintained that there was no connection between the disability and the late diagnosis. But an expert opinion filed in the case concluded that the man’s self-neglect materially delayed the detection of his illness. The expert said the record also showed indifference toward diabetes and blood in the urine, which he only treated after it became massive and led to surgery to remove a bladder tumor. She concluded that the head injury disability, which she said reduced his initiative, motivation and functioning, may have prevented earlier testing and medical evaluation.

Arad adopted that opinion, finding that the veteran’s recognized disability caused self-neglect, that the lung cancer diagnosis was delayed, and that the delay stemmed from that self-neglect. She said that had he sought care in time, the cancer would likely have been found earlier and his chances of recovery improved. The committee therefore accepted the appeal, ordered that the woman be recognized as his widow for purposes of the law, and required the Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation Department to pay her legal costs and 20,000 shekels in attorney’s fees.