The medical director of an Elizabeth urgent care center denied accusations that the facility violated state law by refusing to treat a minor Orthodox patient on Shabbat because his parents couldn’t sign documents.

However, the 9-year-old boy’s father, Lee Niren, vehemently rejected that assertion insisting, “She’s lying.”

Dr. Jasmine Kaur attributed the matter at American Family Care to a miscommunication and said the family left before the center’s procedures for compliance with the law could be explained to him. Because state law exempts those who cannot write on religious holidays from signing documents for medical care, the facility’s policy is to have the patient dictate their information to staff and have two witnesses watch as a staff member signs on the patient’s behalf.

“We never turn away a patient,” Kaur said. “We are here to make sure they receive excellent care. He [Niren] just got upset and walked out. We have been trying to find him but he didn’t stay long enough for us to get his information. He just took his ID and left. He didn’t give us time to explain that option to him. I feel so bad about this misunderstanding. I think it was just an error of communication.”

That is not the way Niren recalled the incident when he and his wife, Rachie, drove their son, who had been suffering from a high fever and other symptoms for most of the week, to the facility. They had visited another urgent care earlier in the week, but the boy’s symptoms had not abated.

They were instructed by their rabbi to bring the documentation required by the law in such instances—a driver’s license and insurance and credit cards.

“The lady at the front desk had me sit and wait and when she came back she said she had spoken to the doctor, the medical director and owner, and they could not treat him without my signature,” he said. “I specifically told her the law and waited maybe 10 minutes. She came back and said she was sorry but the medical director and owner all said no.”

The next day, with their son still showing no improvement, the parents took him to a hospital emergency room, where he was diagnosed with strep and pneumonia and placed on medication.

Kaur said she had spoken to the staff about the restrictions of the fall Jewish holidays ahead of time, but would make it a point to refresh everybody’s memory about the proper protocol for when patients can’t sign.

“I want to relay the message to the Orthodox community [that] we hear them and want to take care of them,” she said. “I took care of an Orthodox woman last weekend.”

However, Niren wasn’t the only community member who claims to have had an issue with the urgent care.

Yehoshua Walshver had a similar experience there about six weeks before the Nirens when he and his wife, Amy, took their 5-year old daughter who was displaying croup-like symptoms. They wheeled her in a carriage while making the 50-minute walk.

“We brought everything that was required and were told, ‘You can’t be seen unless you sign,’” said Walshver, the co-chair of the JEC Elmora Avenue Synagogue. “I’ve taken my kids to hospitals on Shabbos and never had a problem.”

He said he didn’t follow up with the incident because they walked back to shul, where a medical professional in the congregation checked his daughter and said because the problem wasn’t in her lungs to just take her to her doctor after the holiday.

“This wasn’t like just a nuisance,” said Walshver. “It’s something being in this community that they should know about that people can’t sign.”

But Niren was so outraged he contacted The Jewish Link and the New Jersey office of the Agudath Israel of America, which forwarded the complaint to Daniel Kaminetsky, Agudath Israel’s general counsel in New York.

Kaminetsky sent a letter to the facility citing the state law and urging its compliance. However, he said at the time his goal was simply to ensure the law is followed and not to seek punitive measures. Kaminetsky said that when Kuar called him he relayed that to her but requested she send a letter to him stating that the facility understood and would comply with the law going forward, adding “I’m only interested in protecting the religious rights of the Jewish community.”

Niren has a theory about why the matter is being resolved so quickly.

“I also got a call from the U.S. Attorney’s medical discrimination office,” he said, although he is not yet following through with the agency because it appears that the matter is  being handled. “I think they’re very scared right now.”

Debra Rubin has had a long career in journalism writing for secular weekly and daily newspapers and Jewish publications. She most recently served as Middlesex/Monmouth bureau chief for the New Jersey Jewish News. She also worked with the media at several nonprofits, including serving as assistant public relations director of HIAS and assistant director of media relations at Yeshiva University.