SUPPORTERS PROTEST CIGNA FOR TEEN IN NEED OF LIVER TRANSPLANT

MyFox Los Angeles, CA
Dec 21 2007

Glendale — Registered nurses, members of the Armenian-American
community and the family and friends of 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan,
a cancer survivor denied a liver transplant by CIGNA, will march in
protest today outside the insurance company’s local offices.

The 17-year-old Northridge girl is in the intensive care unit at UCLA
Medical Center in Westwood, and her mother told the Daily News that
she has been in a vegetative state for three weeks. Nataline will
die without the transplant, said her mother, Hilda Sarkisyan.

Nataline was diagnosed with leukemia at age 14. After two years of
treatment the cancer went into remission but came back this summer,
Sarkisyan told the Daily News.

When doctors said Nataline could use a bone-marrow transplant,
the Sarkisyans discovered that her only sibling, Bedig, 21, was a
match, and he donated his bone marrow the day before Thanksgiving,
the newspaper reported.

But Nataline developed a complication from the bone-marrow transplant
and, because her liver was failing, doctors recommended a transplant,
according to an appeal letter sent to CIGNA earlier this month,
the Daily News reported.

Doctors said in the letter that CIGNA was denying the transplant
because Nataline’s plan does not cover "experimental, investigational
and unproven services."

The Sarkisyans have filed an appeal with the California Department
of Insurance, but the agency sent a letter this week saying it needs
more information.