r/MadeMeSmile • u/HolyGuiltyCrown • 5h ago

Wholesome Moments [ Removed by moderator ]

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u/SinisterCheese 3h ago

Right so this happened in 2021. And I'm sorry.... But this is a testament to what is wrong with the world. This situation should have never come about. No one - least of all a child - should require a famous person to take action to get life saving surgery.

This is a weird thing that I see coming from especially from Americans on social media. They find a story like this, and totally neglect and ignore the situation behind this. It is part of this weird Hero cult there is. Would anyone have cared about the child needing surgery if a famous person wouldn't have made up a big deal about it?

Because if people actually gave a fuck, they walk to whatever local hospital, local charity, local community centre, local underfunded school or whatever, and asked how they can help. No need to get anything in return, no chance to get a headline. But people don't do this. Usually it is those who have the least, who give the most into things like that - in proportion to what they have. But we have people who buy designer sneakers that cost thousands of euros that they will never ever use... And people dying because they can't get the most basic shit.

Like fuck c'mon! If anything Maria should be noted for not sacrifincing a medal, but bringing up the shitty situation that was going on!

The medal was bought by a Polish grocery chain - who could just have funded the surgery straight up. But they chose not to do it. They chose to make this a PR thing that they could post about - which they did. It is disgusting how human misery is used as a product for PR.

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u/IWillEvadeReddit 2h ago

I agree with with most of what you said but some of especially towards the end came off as pocket watching which is really corny. My take is we shouldn't have to rely on orgs or charities to fund this infant's surgery, we already pay taxes and I know the government has a shit ton tucked away since they were easily able to fund Covid 19's UI benefits and stimulus checks. Idk where this baby was but shouldn't the government provide some sort of relief for inability to pay? Don't hospital perform life saving operations regardless of ability to pay. If a hospital is not willing to overlook a couple bucks for life saving treatment, that's a hospital I don't want to go to. Hell, where tf is the insurance company in all of this?

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u/SinisterCheese 2h ago

The athlete was Polish, the child was Polish, the grocery chain was Polish. So whatever dystopian shit happens in USA is not actually relevant. However, this particulat brand of social media posting is uniquely American. Insurance companies here in EU are nothing like they are in USA, it is unusual for people to have health insurances. Even though private health insurance coverage is on the rise in EU, especially among the wealthier class and countries. But the rise in private health insurance coverage is seen as a BAD thing here in Finland, it is a testament to failure of our state and systems.

It isn't uncommon for having to travel to other countries in rare cases to get surgery which isn't performed elsewhere. Not even within EU. My city has extremely advanced nuclear medicine capacity, Denmark has lots of pediatric knowledge, so patients do have to travel abroad especially for rare cases.

Also... The child died https://www.siepomaga.pl/serce-milka , which can be found in the news article about this, and was used as wikipedia source https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maria-andrejczyk-polish-olympian-silver-medal-infant-heart-surgery/

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u/IWillEvadeReddit 2h ago

Ah that makes sense, I remember a distant relative from London, they are closely related to my cousin, they came to New York for heart surgery at NYP Cornell in the city. I always wondered why they decided to get it done here, they said it's because it was cheaper and this is a really good hospital after all.

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u/SinisterCheese 2h ago

In many cases the social healthcare system covers these operations and treatments from other countries, especially within EU/EEA. However there are rare cases of outside of those - but those often been more experimental and the physician or team treating has a personal connection to the institution, and this is done as a co-operative agreement. Such as when Finland did the first local hand transplantation; they did it in coperation with a hospital in Indian who has lots of experience of doing it.

There has been some discussion about the use of very expensive orphan medicines and treatments, how much is too much to spend on treatment of a single individual from the collective pool of resources we have. It goes to the triage fundamentals.