A few weeks ago I had to read a healthcare article for my health policy administration class. The article was about a girl (an illegal immigrant) who was in Duke's hospital and ended up dying from an organ transplant because the doctors got her blood type wrong. The article was mainly about the mix up of communication between doctors at the hospital and the donor organizations and how that was the main cause of her death. The article also talked about how to reduce such preventable errors. The fact that she died because of a communication problem was saddening but there was one particular part of the article made me really angry. The author mentioned that after hearing about this incident in the news, many organ donors around America started cutting up their donor cards because the doctors had the audacity to use American organs to save the life of a non-citizen.
Excuse my language but my first thought after reading that....what the fuck? The whole point of being an organ donor is to save someone's life and not being a citizen of America does not make one's life any less worth saving. It seems are though these people were organ donors just to show they were generous and cared about life...unless that life wasn't an American's.... I mean she was just a child and she would have died without the transplants (the doctors' mistakes are another story). Also, doctors take oaths to save any person's life if they have the ability to, so these Americans should not have blamed the doctors because they were just doing their duty.
The fact that her “nationality” was even an issue in the case shows how far we have deviated from the true idea of the American Dream, which is that everyone (not just American citizens) should have equal opportunity. This opportunity normally refers to moving up on the socioeconomic ladder, religious and other freedoms, etc. However, I think having the opportunity to live might just be a little more important.
And who are we to call anyone an illegal alien? Every single person's family was originally an immigrant to this land. The only true Americans are the Native Americans and, well, everyone knows what us illegal aliens did to them. Racism has decreased to a certain extent but there is no doubt that it is still part of America. It just seems as though the only immigrants that people blame for their problems (loss of jobs, for example) are the Hispanics. If this girl had been European and still not an American citizen, I feel as though it wouldn't have angered Americans as much. I could definitely be wrong about this but just from what I have heard and seen, that seems to be the case. If this case had been about not giving an illegal alien a house to live or something like that I could have understood the opposing view, but when it comes to someone's life, I firmly believe that every life is worth saving. ...unless that person is a mass murderer or something....
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Wow, that's just ridiculous. Illegal immigrants are people too. For the most part, they did not immigrate to the U.S. to do any harm. They may just be seeking for new job opportunities, etc. or perhaps visiting their relatives. I can relate this to myself because I used to be an illegal immigrant when I first came to America and before I got my green card. I guess I'm lucky I did not have any major health problems during that time. Immigrants do not have any ill intentions, so they should be treated equally. Just because they are not citizens or permanent residents does not mean they should not be saved or treated in life or death situations. For example, the kid in this article. She was just a little girl! It seems as if some people are becoming more racist or nationalistic (?).
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