Canberra Hospital propping up a vicious racist dictatorship?

V twin venom said :

My daughter was a patient of Chandran as an infant and IMO he should be shipped to Fiji on a permanent basis too. Fair dinkum that man, even as philanthropic as he now seems, I wouldn’t let him operate a toaster.

I’ve been a surgical patient of his this year, as I had a herniated disc removed and rods and screws and wires and whatnot put in my lower spine to fuse the vertebrae together. (One mate quipped that “it looks like the surgeon dropped his keys in there!”) In my opinion he did a top job, I’m recovering very nicely indeed. He has a great reputation among others in the profession, and as noted, he’s philanthropic, and he’s also spoken out about the poor state of neurosurgery in the ACT. This all adds up to someone who cares deeply about his work. Obviously you’ve had a bad experience, but it’s hard for a non-medical practioner to form sound judgements about whether problems arose from the surgery, or whether something else was going on, or whether sh*t just happened. Not gainsaying you your opinion, only saying there would be a lot more to it, and given Dr Chandran’s good record and the high opinion of his peers in an extremely demanding speciality, I’d be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt without knowing a lot more about it (and also beocming a trained neurosurgeon myself!).

I don’t see anything wrong with equipment going to Fiji. A far greater concern is when western countries flog off out-of-date and “trial” medicines to third world countries and this isn’t one of those cases.

I think it’s great to make use of the equipment that is no longer suitable for TCH.

My daughter was a patient of Chandran as an infant and IMO he should be shipped to Fiji on a permanent basis too. Fair dinkum that man, even as philanthropic as he now seems, I wouldn’t let him operate a toaster.

Tentative link at best…

One mans trash is another mans treasure simple as that..They need it, we do not.

dvaey said :

misspris said :

Agreed, why take a philanthropic gesture and pick it to pieces? I think the important thing here is that someone will obviously benefit from ACT Health’s generosity.

Im not saying the gesture is bad, I believe that we should be help developing nations in whatever ways we can. However, have we not been bombarded with fundraising campaigns to buy more of these humidicribs and incubators, since (according to the fundraising blurbs) we dont have enough? Theres a difference between being philanthropic when youve got plenty to give away, but for the hospital to come begging to Canberra citizens for money to buy equipment, maybe they should be thinking twice about just giving it away.

If the ACT public are donating money to Canberra hospital appeals to buy these things, I think the public would expect it to be staying locally. If Canberra hospital wants to raise money to assist with healthcare in other countries, that is admirable, but its unfair to fundraise under the guise that ‘Canberra needs xyz’, then we give xyz away to third world countries. It will certainly make me think twice about ever donating to these sorts of things again, to consider if it is staying locally or heading overseas.

I can see your point but I think what Dr Chandran was saying is that obviously this equipment doesn’t meet accreditation standards here in Australia which is why they’re giving it away. I suspect if there were no accreditation issues and that the equipment was still useable that TCH would continue to use it.

There’s a lot of grass-roots efforts to send 2nd hand stuff to Fiji and other tiny, poor nations. Sporting clubs holding drives to collect old sporting gear, i know of individuals collecting used clothing to send them. Someone was rounding up old sewing machines so the ladies could earn money doing piecework. I’m glad this stuff isn’t being thrown out and that some people can get use out of them.

If we find their government distasteful, imagine how they find them?

dvaey said :

Hang on, theyre giving away incubators and humidicribs? Didnt they just have a big fundraising effort to get more of this equipment, as apparently the ACT didnt have enough? Have all these fundraising efforts lately by the hospital and media organisations, simply been done in order to upgrade equipment which was already working, simply so the older stuff could be sent overseas?

I could be wrong but isn’t all the fundraising for mobile humidicribs. They are getting rid of the old non-mobile ones from what I can gather.

dvaey: I imagine there would also be complaints if the old equipment was kept, perhaps along the lines of “why is the old, outdated equipment being used on my child” etc.

Essentially, I think the subtext is that only third world countries would accept these resources second hand – any first world country probably wouldn’t deem them appropriate for everyday use as the technology and useability has been superceded.

I’m also not 100% sure, but I believe a lot of the medical and nursing staff who go on these trips do so in their own time – so it’s important to acknowledge their individual generosity as well, rather than have ACT Health steal their glory.

Excuse me? Humanitarian aid for the people of a country is “propping up a vicious rascist dictatorship?” Are you really that poorly informed that you equate the two?

We, and every other developed nation on the globe, send humanitarian aid in many different forms to non-democratic countries. The people of those countries need the help – often precisely because their own government can’t or won’t. We don’t cross our arms and look away because we disapprove of the government that they have no voice in; that’s so beside the point it’s off the scale. Aid is directed to where it is needed.

Basic human compassion – fail.