Sick girl wants her parents at the hospital, why aren't they there?

[HopeydaFish]

[ QUOTE ]
The treatment for childhood Leukemia is probably not very cheap, and it is kind of depressing to be around a kid that you know will die sooner than you will.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. So why should the parents go and get themselves all broke and depressed over some stupid kid? They should stop paying for her chemo and go on with their lives and forget about her.

[PoBoy321]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

The treatment for childhood Leukemia is probably not very cheap, and it is kind of depressing to be around a kid that you know will die sooner than you will.

[/ QUOTE ]
Exactly. So why should the parents go and get themselves all broke and depressed over some stupid kid? They should stop paying for her chemo and go on with their lives and forget about her.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, suppose that they have other children? Even though they have the sick daughter, they still have to interests of the other child/ren to attend to.

[HopeydaFish]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

The treatment for childhood Leukemia is probably not very cheap, and it is kind of depressing to be around a kid that you know will die sooner than you will.

[/ QUOTE ]
Exactly. So why should the parents go and get themselves all broke and depressed over some stupid kid? They should stop paying for her chemo and go on with their lives and forget about her.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, suppose that they have other children? Even though they have the sick daughter, they still have to interests of the other child/ren to attend to.

[/ QUOTE ]

All the more reason to cut ties with the sick one. Survival of the fittest and all that.

[Hiding]

Maybe they work for insurance? If they work at the same place then there is probably a huge family plan discount. And with a new job or no job the condition is pre-existing and there will be no coverage.

I dunno, tell the kid to suck it up and give 'em 20

[AdamL]

Boy did I think this was a strange coincidence until I saw who the poster was. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Yeah, I thought the same thing when I saw it. Sad situation, and we really don't know what the circumstances are, but I had the same thoughts...

Edit: There is no charge for chemo-therapy in Canada as far as I know. It is covered by our health insurance. My Grandfather had many years in and our of the hospital with cancer before he died. There is no charge unless she is being taken to a private facility, which is possible.

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
Boy did I think this was a strange coincidence until I saw who the poster was. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Yeah, I thought the same thing when I saw it. Sad situation, and we really don't know what the circumstances are, but I had the same thoughts...

Edit: There is no charge for chemo-therapy in Canada as far as I know. It is covered by our health insurance. My Grandfather had many years in and our of the hospital with cancer before he died. There is no charge unless she is being taken to a private facility, which is possible.



[/ QUOTE ]

To be completely honest, this is where my nitdom goes from being just irritating, to being downright disturbing. I wish I weren't this cynical.

I guess my main points are that even if they have another child, moving to an apartment to pay for medical stuff seems like a reasonable idea. And the people that respond to this post are completely ignorant to the request for cash in order to get time off work (which is in the OP). Even if one of them took a leave of absense from their present job and took a night job for cash, they would likely still be covered under their current group insurance, based on the premise that the poster itself is based on.

So, it boils down to: will they have a positive net worth, and what will it be, when they're done? Will they have enough cash for an apartment, or will they be homeless.

If it's a matter of them being homeless, then the poster should read something like: sick kid, need to take time off work, don't want to be homeless, which is a reasonable request.

If they'll have an apartment and a car, it should read: sick kid, don't want to have to sell house, which is a reasonable request, but something that i would be more inclined to help a friend with than a stranger.

The key becomes evaluating different charities:

You'd have to decide between giving to someone who has a sick kid and doesn't want to live in an apartment vs giving money to (for example) kids in africa, who's poster would read: need money, don't want to starve. or something like that.

In the case of "sick kid, don't want to live in an apartment" vs. "need cash, don't want to starve", I think we know who NEEDS the money vs who WANTS the money.

Furthermore, if it were the case that these parents were making the decision to work rather than move into an apartment when their daughter is having chemo, I'd be pretty furious with them. I'll reiterate my earlier point: It's just a house.

There's two other factors that come into play here:

1) I don't know what the situation is with the family of the girl on the poster: maybe it's a matter of preventing them from becoming homeless. That would essentially equal the two charities in my books.

1.5) If they don't have savings, I'm curious as to why they don't. I had some brief thoughts about how responsible they'd been with their finances before this point but came to two conclusions:

1.5 A) This is a "sunk cost" scenario and doesn't matter in the evaluation of what to do NOW.

1.5 B) This is not the fault of the daughter.

2) They're local, presumably? I don't know. It appears that way. If you do a search on google you'll find the poster, but there's no information on who it's for (even general information other than the situation). For all I know, these guys could live anywhere in Ontario or possibly the northern states).

Contributing to local charities has a positive effect on yourself and your children/grandchildren that's greater than that of making a donation to a foreign charity (most of the time*). You could even say that making a donation to a foreign charity would have a detrimental effect on yourself/children/grandchildren (most of the time).

*By most of the time, I mean excepting cases where making donations to foreign charities prevents terrorism, etc.

---------------------------------------------------

I just want to make a point here that I don't like the idea of children being ill and I don't like human suffering in general. I'm not trying to be an a-hole, but I'm trying to carefully think about this situation. In fact, it doesn't really matter for this particular situation as much as it's important for evaluating future charitable situations, for me.

If anything, this situation has gotten me thinking about lonely sick children in hospitals. It might be cool to volunteer to go read to them or something, just keeping them company... as poker pros, this is possible due to the flexible hours our jobs afford.

I'd like to bring up the point one more time that it's probably "unhealthy" to be cynical regarding these situations, but I'm kinda stuck being the way I am.

[AdamL]

What depressed me was that the sign implied that the parents weren't being there. That blows... really. Even if it's a homeless situation.