Christmas Morning--2020

Holy Family Church--Peoria

So I am working on this website/blog early today. And I am asking myself, what is the point of all this?

Is it to just tell a story? 

What are my objectives?

One story I am attempting to tell is that when a very small NGO such as Haitian Hearts has to manage severely ill babies and children with heart disease, and then take these babies and children OUT of Haiti for definitive medical care (heart surgery), this is a sign of a failed medical "system" in Haiti. 

And another story is that when medical centers in the United States accept "foreign" (international) patients for ANY type of medical care, be it orthopedic care, burn care, heart surgery, etc. that medical center needs to be in it for the long run. It should not be a definite "one-and-done" for good publicity for the medical center. There needs to be a commitment by the medical center for complete care of the international patient. 

Kids should not be sent back to Afghanistan after major surgery in the United States just to die in a muddy tent shortly after returning to Afghanistan. 

And international patients should not be repatriated to their own country from their hospital bed in the United States by a private plane hired by the medical center. And when they are flown to their own poor village and end up in their own poor home with their own poor relative unable to give high tech medical care, this is wrong. 

Doctors in large medical centers in the United States should not be threatened to take kids back to their home country before they are ready. 

And kids should not be sent back to Haiti only to be denied repeat heart surgery as has happened in Peoria. 

It comes back to responsibility. Not just individual responsibility but corporate medical center responsibility to do the right thing.  

I remember when a well known pediatric heart surgeon in Florida said that ALL kids from Haiti who are being operated in Florida should be treated as if they are "Gold Coast" patients.  

Very well said, but it is a shame he had to say it in the first place. 

What are your thoughts? Am I asking too much?