Here is a story about a Filipina immigrant who came to the states with twins joined at the head. Four years ago they were separated and received national attention and international medical media, but today still face considerable uncertainty for their future.
All the harrowing fears face this Filipina mother whose worries encompass all the scaffolds of living here in the States as an immigrant – visas, finance, medical attention, and dwindling generosity.
I think this story points out an interesting aspect of health care ethics. So now this doctor who performed the surgery travels the world talking about what he did, the hospital gets great PR, and yet these boys and their mother, while happy their skulls aren’t still fused, have alot of things to figure out still. This is an area where modern medicine needs to improve by acknowledging that people are human persons, not just science experiments, and that healing includes caring for the psychological, physical, and financial needs. Who cares if they separated their heads if they can’t afford shelter? Are they any better off?
This is heart breaking! I wish Americans were forced to listen to stories like these every single night until we finally decided to enact some sort of sensible system of support for poor people in this country. This mother should not have to worry about whether her sons will be able to get their skulls reconstructed or now.
Thanks for this link–I’d been following this story avidly when the twins first came here for surgery, & kept Googling them afterwards, but hadn’t heard anything in a while.
It seems weird to me that the Filipino community here in NYC hasn’t stepped up more (or @ least not that the NYT is reporting) to help out. I thought I remembered hearing that the Filipino nurses in the hospital had been bringing Filipino food & whatnot, but I guess no one is doing that anymore? Sad!!