A Moral Dilemma for you

[Donut]

This is the scenario. A post-graduate student arrives in your country from Libya as part of a sponsored student programme. He brings his pregnant wife with him, she has recently undergone fertility treatment in her own country.

A few weeks after they arrive, and 12 weeks premature she gives birth to sextuplets having had an emergency caesarian delivery carried out by a team of 14 doctors and nurses. The weakest baby, weighing just 340g dies shortly after birth. Of the remaining the heaviest is just 2lb (1 kg).

The children will need to be kept in intensive care for about three months, the mother is also recovering in hospital. Without the care they will almost certainly die). The total cost of medical care is likely to be over £600,000 (1 million US$). They have no medical insurance.

So your dilemmas are:

What would happen to these children in your country? (more a question than a dilemma)
What should happen to these children?
Who should pay for the care?


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Save Chip - Don't let Sarah win!
Official Titterer of the Laughing Hyenas

[debiler]

This is sick...

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proud male

[Donut]

Originally posted by debiler: This is sick...

Why do you think so - this is a true story and I am genuinely interested in a solution.



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Save Chip - Don't let Sarah win!
Official Titterer of the Laughing Hyenas

[debiler]

I never could´ve imagined that it´s a true story. But I think the solution would be quite cruel, letting money decide over peoples´ lives. And this is waaaay sick.

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malt beer artist

[Donut]

Originally posted by debiler: I never could´ve imagined that it´s a true story. But I think the solution would be quite cruel, letting money decide over peoples´ lives. And this is waaaay sick.

I have just posted the facts and asked for information and opinions. I am interested because I work within the National Health Service. From time to time I have to make decisions about whether a patient is entitled to free treatment (thankfully nothing on the scale of this case).


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Save Chip - Don't let Sarah win!
Official Titterer of the Laughing Hyenas

[Harkoliar]

im going to think over this one tonight donut. this is a pretty tough thing since it affets not only them, but alot of people too. however, i will answer one of your question. the first one...

i would say that (although i hate to admit it) that those children will have a slim chance of surviving in a 3rd world country like mine. (Philippines is a 3rd world country, sigh, and the government, corrupted as they are, is slowly destroying everyone and everything). im talking realistically here and of course you could argue that there are many people who are willing to help them because of thier predicatment, but there is so much suffering here already that these kinds of problems is sickining.

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Revived I Am to hunt this world... Banish ye evil or face my wrath...

[Redblueflare]

Ugh, just the thought of that situation makes me sense. What are those people doctors or terrorists? Give us a million dollars if you want your children to live! Arghhh!!! To think money would decide the lives of people, and better still people who've just started to live. I hope someone will be kind enough to donate the money that couple needs. Surely someone in the world is generous enough.

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Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I just don't have to listen.

For me, this is a straightforward situation: The lady and her children receive whatever care is necessary until they are capable of surviving on their own. As they are legal guests in your country, there should be no political flak to this decision.
In the US, this sort of thing happens constantly with both legal and illegal immigrants or visitors. There is a lot of politicking that goes on about the issue, but I believe that for the most part, the needed care is provided.
In my own morality, attaching a dollar value or measurement of worth to a life, human or not, is very wrong.

Excellent subject, Donut, thanks for posting it.

[Fljotsdale]

Obviously, they should receive the care they need - lives are more important than money. However, since the husband is a student on a sponsored programme from Libya then EITHER his health insurer in Libya should cover the cost, OR, if he doesn't have cover in Libya, then the Government of the sponsoring country - in this case Libya - should pick up the bill, or a least a sizeable proportion of it.

However, let me add this: if the wife was able to afford fertility treatment, the student's family, or his wife's, cannot be short of money.
If the couple deliberately chose to go on the sponsored programme in order to get the best treatment for the wife, one cannot blame them for it - who wouldn't do the same? - but a family wealthy enough to afford fertility treatment shouldn't expect too much in the way of freebies. Freebies are for the genuinely poor, and if people who can AFFORD to pay get the freebies then the poor will lose out.


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[This message has been edited by Fljotsdale (edited 08-16-2001).]

[Kinslayer]

This is a tough one, being English myself I know that there are plenty of English people in this country waiting on organ transplants that will save their lives. Some of these are kids yet they sit on waiting lists due to a lack of funding. Now there is a foreigner who has voluntarily had fertility treatment and been in the country a matter of weeks and someone must decide if she gets the £600,000 worth of treatment for her babies, that in all likelihood will not pull through, ahead of youngsters awaiting routine life saving operations. The answer should be for Libya to cover any costs accrued but we can all guess what the chances of this are. It's cases like these that make you wonder if a footballer, actor or company director really should get the extortionate salaries they do when people's lives are in the balance because of money.