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The article does a poor job of describing the actual situation that these parents face. What would have been the alternative when the local hospitals regularly

The article does a poor job of describing the actual situation that these parents face. What would have been the alternative when the local hospitals regularly refuse treatment? If these malnourished children could just get proper care at a real medical facility, why would they be malnourished in the first place? It's much cheaper to just feed a child instead of giving intensive care. Ironically, in that one instance where this woman put a child in a critical condition, she might have saved it, because now the hospital would take it in, where it would have been refused before. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure this woman could've done more good by just working an ordinary job in the US and donating a fraction of her income to trustworthy charities. Still, I'm not convinced she did more harm than good by performing this job.

mprev 7y ago
There are quite some parallels here with the Theranos story. Both seem to come from a place of ignorance mixed with unearned self belief and exceptionalism. Your suggestion that surely this person did some good is, it seems to me, a smaller example of the attitude referred to in the story.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  This person did some harm, she also did some good. It wasn't all harm. Could she have done better? Of course. Still, you have to put it into perspective. Remember, Uganda is in the bottom 10 countries in terms of human development. Your options are limited.
viraptor 7y ago
> Ironically, in that one instance where this woman put a child in a critical condition, she might have saved it, because now the hospital would take it in, where it would have been refused before. This is accidental. I'm not going to go around stabbing people just in case someone looks at them in the ER and notices an early melanoma. But you could write a comparable "ironically" if it worked. The kid could recover without intervention, could die immediately, could recover in the hospital, could die in the hospital. We can't just count on lucky harm in cases like this.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  > This is accidental. Of course it is accidental. I wrote that to highlight the difficulty of getting admitted to a hospital, not to argue that this is a good way to get admitted. > I'm not going to go around stabbing people just in case someone looks at them in the ER and notices an early melanoma. But you could write a comparable "ironically" if it worked. That wouldn't really be ironic, that would just be stupid. It would be ironic if you went out stabbing a person in order to harm them, but as a result you actually helped them (relatively speaking). For further reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1TVSTkAXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1TVSTkAXg

mprev 7y ago

There are quite some parallels here with the Theranos story. Both seem to come from a place of ignorance mixed with unearned self belief and exceptionalism. Your suggestion that surely this person did some good is, it seems to me, a smaller example of the attitude referred to in the story.

gridlockd 7y ago
This person did some harm, she also did some good. It wasn't all harm. Could she have done better? Of course. Still, you have to put it into perspective. Remember, Uganda is in the bottom 10 countries in terms of human development. Your options are limited.

viraptor 7y ago

> Ironically, in that one instance where this woman put a child in a critical condition, she might have saved it, because now the hospital would take it in, where it would have been refused before. This is accidental. I'm not going to go around stabbing people just in case someone looks at them in the ER and notices an early melanoma. But you could write a comparable "ironically" if it worked. The kid could recover without intervention, could die immediately, could recover in the hospital, could die in the hospital. We can't just count on lucky harm in cases like this.

gridlockd 7y ago
> This is accidental. Of course it is accidental. I wrote that to highlight the difficulty of getting admitted to a hospital, not to argue that this is a good way to get admitted. > I'm not going to go around stabbing people just in case someone looks at them in the ER and notices an early melanoma. But you could write a comparable "ironically" if it worked. That wouldn't really be ironic, that would just be stupid. It would be ironic if you went out stabbing a person in order to harm them, but as a result you actually helped them (relatively speaking). For further reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1TVSTkAXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1TVSTkAXg