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Who gets to live and who gets to die?
Author: Raine
Date: 07/10/2008 12:32:12
"Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."
Just don't expect us to let them live. Yesterday, I mentioned a story about a 15 year old boy. The Hospital 'determined the boy's unstable living conditions make him a poor candidate for a transplant...'
Are 15 year olds with stable living conditions more deserving of medical treatment? What teenager is stable? Who can guarantee any stability in their own life for the next 6 months... never mind 2 years? The DCF is trying to get this boy, a human being, btw, into another hospital and back on the donor list. He is in the advanced stages of liver disease.
He is a foster child. His life, I assume has been insane, his mom was a crack addict. Now because a hospital deems him not worthy, they basically decided he should die. This is your America. An America where our health care system decides who deserves medical care and who doesn't based up some arbitrary system of the haves and the have nots. Never mind, that as a ward of the state he would be covered by medicare... People who need transplants are sick. From the article:
What I want to know... Where are all of those GOP politicians that were more than happy to "save" Terry Shiavo? Where is Mel Martinez? Where is Bill Frist? Santorum? Where is our beloved leader, who flew in to sign the Palm Sunday Compromise? Oh, yeah. Silly me, it's not so politically expedient these days, I guess, to ensure a child has the right to life -- or liberty or the pursuit of happiness...
Like all of the unfortunate members of society, it seems as tho this boy is just not politically convenient. Too bad, because I thought living was a basic human right. I hope that Jackson Memorial Hospital will do for this boy what Shands did not, base the case on medical facts, and not because of the 'could be's' surrounding his prior and future life.
Today the news cycle will be filled with the sad and tragic case of JonBenet. I doubt anyone will talk about a poor foster kid from Florida, it just isn't convenient.
:peace: and :heart:
Raine
Edit to Add:
Ted Kennedy came to DC save Medicare yesterday. This man showed up. This man cares for the poor, the tired, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Just don't expect us to let them live. Yesterday, I mentioned a story about a 15 year old boy. The Hospital 'determined the boy's unstable living conditions make him a poor candidate for a transplant...'
Are 15 year olds with stable living conditions more deserving of medical treatment? What teenager is stable? Who can guarantee any stability in their own life for the next 6 months... never mind 2 years? The DCF is trying to get this boy, a human being, btw, into another hospital and back on the donor list. He is in the advanced stages of liver disease.
He is a foster child. His life, I assume has been insane, his mom was a crack addict. Now because a hospital deems him not worthy, they basically decided he should die. This is your America. An America where our health care system decides who deserves medical care and who doesn't based up some arbitrary system of the haves and the have nots. Never mind, that as a ward of the state he would be covered by medicare... People who need transplants are sick. From the article:
...it is unreasonable to require the state to guarantee the boy will be in a permanent home for at least two years, given that even children who are not in foster care can't make such guarantees. ''That is a bar a little too high,'' Caplan said.
Transplant teams routinely accept pledges from recovering alcoholics that they will never drink again after accepting a donated liver, or promises that smokers will quit smoking once they receive a new heart, Caplan said. Why should a foster child be required to do more than that? he asked.
''It is absolutely unethical to deny a transplant to a child because you don't have a home setting that is stable or parents who can help with compliance with the treatment,'' Caplan said. ``That's why you have child-caring agencies and foster care. That's what child welfare should be doing.''
What I want to know... Where are all of those GOP politicians that were more than happy to "save" Terry Shiavo? Where is Mel Martinez? Where is Bill Frist? Santorum? Where is our beloved leader, who flew in to sign the Palm Sunday Compromise? Oh, yeah. Silly me, it's not so politically expedient these days, I guess, to ensure a child has the right to life -- or liberty or the pursuit of happiness...
Like all of the unfortunate members of society, it seems as tho this boy is just not politically convenient. Too bad, because I thought living was a basic human right. I hope that Jackson Memorial Hospital will do for this boy what Shands did not, base the case on medical facts, and not because of the 'could be's' surrounding his prior and future life.
Today the news cycle will be filled with the sad and tragic case of JonBenet. I doubt anyone will talk about a poor foster kid from Florida, it just isn't convenient.
:peace: and :heart:
Raine
Edit to Add:
Ted Kennedy came to DC save Medicare yesterday. This man showed up. This man cares for the poor, the tired, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
