Posted by Rational [RW] on March 26, 1999 at 09:29:19 {MWL/XiTm77dH6}:
According to a letter printed in the March 27, 1999, issue of the British Medical Journal (found online here), the costs incurred by one severely ill JW could run an entire medical unit in Africa for one year. The writer of the letter is Medical Superintendent of the Kiwoko Hospital in Luwero, Uganda. The journal reports:
EDITOR -- Minerva reports that a Jehovah's Witness survived emergency surgery for a leaking abdominal aneurysm despite having a postoperative haemoglobin concentration of only 30 g/l; he spent 14 weeks in hospital.1 Those of us who work in rural Africa can only wonder how much it cost in the face of claims of rationing and cost cutting in the NHS. Such a stay must easily have cost a six figure sum.Do you suppose we'll read about this in Awake! magazine? Anyone dare to send a copy to the Society and suggest that they publish it?Here in Uganda for �250 000 a year we can treat 25 000 outpatients and 7000 inpatients, conduct over 1000 deliveries, and perform 1500 operations. We run a community health programme for 500 000 people. The costs incurred by this one patient might run our unit for a whole year. Will the time come when a religious group will be charged the costs of keeping its members alive? Ethically one may feel that one should do everything, whatever the cost; at the end of the financial year, however, elective surgery that could be life improving has to be cancelled.
The choice is easy here in Uganda. When a child who has severe anaemia from malaria with hookworm infestation and undernutrition comes in the choice is simple: he or she has a transfusion or dies.
Rational