Long-time friend of GIC is now feeling sick and need blood transfusions.
His blood type is Rh-B (Type: B, RH -) and he needs several transfusions.
If you can help out please call 011.9943.8066 or if you can speak Korean call 061-379-7963(Chonnam National University Hwasun Hospital).
You can also go the Red Cross downtown near the police station and they can do tests if you don't already know what type you are.
Kindly pass along this message to your friends/ contacts in and around Gwangju.
Any kind of help is greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much for your kind attention.
Sincerely,
Gwangju International Center
Please contribute, if possible.
11 comments:
T'would be nice if everyone in Korea, regardless of blood type, went to the local blood bank to give blood and/or put their data in the bone marrow registry.
It would be so much easier if instead of having to "donate," people could actually be paid for their blood, time, and real "tears." I doubt there'd be a shortage then. Same thing with organ donation. It isn't like the rich (Steve Jobs for one) can't manipulate the system as it is already.
John from Taejŏn wrote:
It would be so much easier if instead of having to "donate," people could actually be paid for their blood, time, and real "tears."
Well, they give you cookies.
Same thing with organ donation. It isn't like the rich (Steve Jobs for one) can't manipulate the system as it is already.
While I see what you're getting at, I think paying people for their organs would lead to exploitation of their poorer classes in the worst possible way.
I think the way to solve the problem is to assume all people are willing to give up their organs upon death unless they specifically state otherwise (e.g., on a government ID or in a government database of some sort).
It's a tragedy that so many people on organ waiting lists die.
Bone marrow, on the other hand, is something I might think is okay to pay for, since it involves considerable time and sometimes suffering to the donor. Not sure if they receive a stipend for that.
But at any rate, I'm not talking about changing the system but rather working with the system that already exists. Inevitably, there will be a situation where one or more expats will be in need of something like that.
"I think the way to solve the problem is to assume all people are willing to give up their organs upon death unless they specifically state otherwise (e.g., on a government ID or in a government database of some sort)."
Like those datadbases work so well already, and how would children fare in this database as we see youngsters already being kept off airplanes because of database failures?
And, "no one" should have their bodies desecrated automatically because someone else wants to play whatever god they believe in to live longer that what their god originally decided.
It's bad enough that "newcomers" to this existence on our planet are already being forced into lifetimes of toil and taxation without the benefit of first being able to decide if they'd like to stuff tuna fish into cans for next to nothing (67 cents an hour) in tuna sweatshops or in chicken sweatshops just on the basis of where they pop out into existence on the planet.
And now you want to take out blood and organs without any sort of compensation. The poor just can't win.
This is my good friend who has been diagnosed with likely having leukemia. How about talking about ways to help him and speading the word rather than discussing future theoretical situations that do nothing to help him right now?
Respectfully, John, I think you're conflating a lot of things that don't necessarily belong together. It is possible, for example, to build a dataset that includes everybody but still includes fail safes that check and double check. Some Scandinavian countries, I believe, have been doing the "all in" system instead of "opt in" without significant problems (at least not that we hear about).
But what of the kids? Surely a prerequisite that the donor be dead would likely prevent a live kid from being forced to donate a kidney.
But you know what, I'll be frank that I'm more concerned with allowing people who are alive to stay alive than the rights of a dead person to keep their organs. Someone on a waiting list dies every ninety-minutes in America, where 65% of the people who are eligible to donate don't.
I respect your idea of selling organs, but I think we see quite a few examples where the buying, selling, or renting of human beings becomes quite exploitive. I think in Japan and Korea, for example, we would quickly see where yakuza types are forcing people to settle their debts by giving up a kidney, for example. In places where daughters are forced into brothels or even non-sex service jobs to support their family in the provinces, what more beyond their sex organs will be demanded of them if organ selling were legalized? What's a cornea or a kidney or part of a liver when they're already giving up their vagina?
I wish there were a viable way for people to earn money for organ donation without being exploited (and if there is such a working model, I'd really like to hear more about it), because my understanding is that "fresh" organs from a living person make for a more favorable health outcome than a dead one because the live donor and the needy recipient can be brought geographically close together so that the time between removal and transplant is very small. Where someone can live without a certain organ or tissue that would be ideal, if it can be done without exploitation.
fattycat wrote:
This is my good friend who has been diagnosed with likely having leukemia. How about talking about ways to help him and speading the word rather than discussing future theoretical situations that do nothing to help him right now?
You're right, of course, and I am just about to post something about that on my blog. But my first comment (to which John was giving a fair response) was meant not to be theoretical but rather to be productive and helpful for helping reduce future incidents like this.
Kushibo, seriously, stop talking. This isn't a post to debate anything, this is an urgent call for help.
*** NOTE ***
O- blood will not work in this instance, only B Rh- can help.
The Waygook, seriously, mind your own business.
My first comment was topical and any "debate" I engaged in was started by someone else (but also relevant).
Interesting discussion, I guess, and relevant to the issue of blood donation given the case of the young boy earlier in the year.
I'll have updates a little later, and I'd like to keep that topic germane to this news out of Gwangju. I don't want this one, either, to turn into a theoretical discussion, given the bad news and urgent need.
I hope he gets help! There is another expat in a hospital in Bundang with a life-threatening condition who really needs donations to get the medicine he needs. Please help if possible! Info: http://bredainkorea.blogspot.com/2010/08/help-expat-in-dire-need.html
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