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Ukraine uses old soviet-era state-sponsored medical system free for all citizens, i.e. you don't need an insurance.
Even if he's got some kind of supplementary private insurance for private clinics, it obviously won't cover procedures in other countries, just like most American insurance companies.
I do agree though that they should be doing something other than asking everyone else to fork over cash.
Well, whatever, I hope it all works out for them, but please, MySQL, get some editors.
I know this could be seen as a heartless gesture but has anyone verified with MySql that Andrii Nikitin is who the page claims? I know this is shown off the mysql site but that's just a webpage. Does anyone personally/professionally know Andrii? Does anyone know Andrii at MySql?
It would help greatly Anreii's cause if MySql "officially" set up an MySql postal account allowing non paypal money orders, cheques etc to be passed on if they use MySql by name.
There's also an address for postal mail, and info for wire transfers (http://www.theopenforce.com/2008/07/andrii-nikitin.html)
I agree, they should perhaps add this information to the main MySQL site.
In any case, I know from whence you are coming. I'm sure the family would appreciate your efforts regardless. Advertising for the cause is absolutely helpful, as most Hacker News posters should know.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Bone-Marrow-Transplant-Costs---For...
says it can be done much cheaper in India.
This is not leading-edge medicine today (it was perhaps 10 years ago). But medical centers still try to charge leading-edge prices.
Yet another reason we need a national health care in the USA - to get doctors out of their Mercedes, off the golf courses and back into medicine for medicine's sake.
Point 1: What do you think doctors are? Saints? They are human like the rest of us and would rather work for cash. They would probably also do better work if they were doing so for their own good. Case in point: Who had more food during the 1950-1980s. The US or the USSR?
Point 2: What makes you think that national health care will make doctors magnanimous? Just switching the payer from individuals to the govt. (which gets its cash from individuals anyway) doesn't magically change people. If we get national health care, doctors will probably start doing exactly what government unions have done: invest in lobbyists.
PS. The patient is in Ukraine. How will changing the US health care system help him?
Point 1: Today's doctors are for the most part motivated by $. This was not so even as early as 50 years ago. We need more doctors and need to pay them less. Part of the solution: increased specialization, reduced time in medical school and a different form of health care system. This is a complex problem. The best short summary I have found is available at http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/07110?gko=564...
Scroll down and read especially "Redefining Competition" about Porter and Teisberg's ideas.
Point 2: By reducing the income of doctors, we'll rid the system of the greedheads currently running the HMOs, the medical centers and the cancer institutes. People who enter medicine will be people more interested in medicine and less in accumulating a fortune. The financial motivation to get into medical school is simply too tempting currently in the US. Pre-med students are the only group in whom I have seen intentional sabotage of other (pre-med) students' work. Even worse, most pre-meds expect such behavior as normal. And consider Senator Bill Frist, M.D. repeatedly strangling kittens he obtained from the local Adopt-A-Pet in the bathroom sink to get an edge in medical school. Is this normal behavior? For today's pre-med or medical student it apparently is.
Once MDs are knocked down a notch (both in pay scale and consequently in social status), PhDs will once again be able to dominate laboratory research, where they are far, far better than are MDs (who unfortunately currently dominate). We may finally get decent medical research for our government dollars. Doctors are bad researchers: their training is as scholars (i.e., they read and memorize books, books and more books) and they are good at spitting back what they've read. Training as a doctor usually destroys the ability to think independently and do good research.
PS: The original article says treatment could be in the US. I took the opportunity to make a statement about the US health care system and how expensive it is. But FWIW certain changes to the US health care system would make it cheaper for anyone who could use that system.
Not any more so than any other field. Me - I want a doctor who is smart enough to have done something else and smart enough to say "pay me what I'm worth".
> We need more doctors and need to pay them less.
Unless you're going to break the monopoly on services that can only be performed by doctors or the medical school monopoly, you're not going to reduce income without introducing more scarcity (they'll do something else and won't be replaced).
The "universal health care" advocates never mention that the federal, state, and local govts directly control about half of the US healthcare spending and cover about half of the covered people. If you're going to argue that govt healthcare can be better/cheaper, that can be done today with those resources.
As it is, they're arguing that they'll be able to cover more than twice as many people for about 50% more money. How about demonstrating that and opening up the govt system to outsiders for cost? If you're right, the private system will either become as good or die.
Such methods as training doctors less and allowing specialization earlier, eliminating situations where doctors are currently required, tracking and publishing doctors' success rates, allowing pharmacists to write prescriptions, etc. all would reduce doctors' income and weaken the medical school monopoly. Many more students would enter medicine since, while it wouldn't pay as much, it would pay well, and the requirements and time needed to enter the field would be significantly reduced.
And please read http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/07110?gko=564...
Scroll down and read especially "Redefining Competition" about Porter and Teisberg's ideas.
And I also wondered about the price tag.
In any case, it's natural to look out first for those in your own community (although admittedly you have to have an extremely broad definition of "community" for that to apply here). Yeah, we could get into philosophical debates about how it would actually be better to save more people by looking outside of your community, but this discussion is strictly academic if we aren't already donating as much as we feasibly can. We shouldn't critique steps in the right direction (helping others more) just because they are imperfect.
There are a lot of email addresses and phone numbers for Sun PR people here, I'm sure they would like to know about this story. http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/contacts/index.jsp
Here is a press report : http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/04/stories/2005080411550300.htm
The hospital: http://lakeshorehospital.com
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i think the OP wasn't stating a fact, but rather making an emphatic plea to the community.
</sarcasm>
This is not hacker news. There are lots of kids out there who are in just as much need of help. This one just happens to have a father who works on an open source product.
This child is going to die if some people don't help - and you're worried the news item is polluting your sacrosanct daily news feed?
If you can't help, don't, atleast don't NOT help? Hope this gives you some perspective.
A Cynic is one who knows the price of everything and value of nothing. - Oscar Wilde
If it was your kid, wouldn't you?