For my Orthodox friends:
and others too I suppose, but I thought you, especially would love this. I took my friend Jason to the coast last weekend while Janet was at a ladies' conference. We visited the ancient city called Salona, containing the remains of a 2nd century church! That is like, impossible to find outside of Palestine. Diocletian ruled Rome from the neighboring city, Split, and was said to have made Nero look like a choir-boy in his ferocious persecution of Christians. I felt something amazing in my spirit as I walked through the ruins of this place where so many were killed through preserving the Christian faith. Enjoy the pictures!
Why I don't believe in socialized health care
I've got three sad stories for you today. Do with them what you will. Just let me say at the outset that they originate from Sarajevo, Bosnia where the whole country used to *enjoy* socialized health care. Though the war has brought "democracy" for the first time ever in its history, Bosnia still operates under socialism because it is all they know. Democratic problems cannot be solved by socialistic means,and these stories just scratch the surface of deep rooted problems:
Story #1: Amela and Mohamed live next door to us in a basement apartment. They are villagers who moved to Sarajevo to find work. Sarajevo lost up to a half of its population during and after the war. They were either killed or fled as refugees. Those numbers have been replenished by people like Amela and Mohamed. They are typically looked down upon as "not real Sarajevans", especially if they are from the village. Amela went into labor the other night at 1:00 am. Mohamed woke me up by knocking on our window and I knew right away it was time to go to the hospital. We found our way there--their first visit to the hospital--and walked in the front door. The hallways were cold, no lights were on, and the guy at the reception desk was out cold and not even hiding the pillow that he brought to work.
We start walking down the hall looking for life and a nurse comes around the corner and barks at us, "WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING!?" She opens a door and turns on a light, rubs her eyes and just stares us all up and down, obviously noting that they are very poor. She asks for Amela's ID card and Mohamed gives his. "ARE YOU HAVING THE BABY OR IS SHE!!??" Mohamed explains that she doesn't have one (I know that they can't afford it) but gives the nurse her medical record book. The nurse stares at it, throws it aside, and just stares at Amela for a minute in silence. "HOW CAN YOU LIVE LIKE THAT? YOU'RE 21, HAVING YOUR THIRD BABY, YOU CAN'T EVEN AFFORD TO OFFICIALLY GET MARRIED AND GET AN ID CARD.
GET OUT OF HERE YOU PILE OF ______!" None of us moved, we were too shocked. Mohamed breaks the silence and says softly, "I'm sorry m'am but she's ready to push." Amela is ready to collapse at my side. The nurse literally sits there waiting for us to leave. Finally she gives up and calls in the doctor.
Story #2: The doctor comes in and kicks Mohamed and I out. We hear him berating her inside the room. Finally Amela comes out in a nightgown and is sent walking up some stairs. The doctor tells us to come back the next day and to bring her clothing, toothpaste, food, bedding, and toilet paper. TOILET PAPER.
We come back the next morning and are informed that she had a little girl. Of course we can't see either of them, "Come back tomorrow."
Story #3: The next day Amela is finally released with her baby. She tells us that when we had last seen her at 3 am they took her up to a room and disappeared for 5 hours. She was left alone on a delivery table while the doctor and nurse went back to sleep. She started to push around 8 am, just as the new doctor was coming in for the morning shift. Just after her baby was born, there was an uproar in the room next door because a lady had pushed her baby out unattended and the baby fell on the floor and died. The husband showed up with a lawyer saying that they should have at least let him in to deliver the baby and the hospital administration kept saying "mi nismo kriv"--"it's not our problem, you should have applied for that permission ahead of time."
We came home with the baby and Mohamed left the next day for Montenegro where he had been promised a construction job until next March. He worked all summer on some buildings just down the road from us and has still not been paid a cent.
Lord have mercy.
