NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Dec. 21 (UPI) -- The mother of a California teenager who died waiting for a liver transplant blamed an insurance company that denied coverage of the operation for the death.
While Philadelphia insurance company Cigna reversed an earlier decision and approved coverage of the transplant, the decision came just hours after 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan had died.
"She passed away and the insurance (company) is responsible for this," her mother, Hilda Sarkisyan of Northridge, Calif., told the Los Angeles Daily News.
About 150 teenagers and nurses staged a rally for Nataline Sarkisyan at UCLA Medical Center, where the girl was in critical condition. Cigna, earlier denied coverage of the transplant, saying there was no medical evidence it would work for the girl, whose liver failed as she suffered from leukemia, the Daily News said.
