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#21
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True, my perspective is colored by my own local experiences with AF.
Here in the northeast, AF is often a matter of convenience (albeit a significant one!) rather than necessity. On the Gulf Coast, it's a matter of necessity. We're very spread out here. There are major cancer facilities in Houston and San Antonio, and effectively nowhere else in the area. I've flown patients in from all over Texas, Arkansas, Missisippi, and Louisiana. They're looking at 6-12 hour drives to make Houston - and usually flying them in by airline is no faster (or cheaper!) because we're looking at commuter airlines making connections. Many of these people simply can't make the trip - it's just too rough. The only realistic option for them is medical charter - which most insurance (including Medicare) won't pay for. What's more, medical charter is significantly more expensive than my airplane - in part because their pilots and mechanics need to be paid, while I fly and turn wrenches for free, and in part due to regulatory costs (which have NOT given them a better safety record than Angel Flight). I agree that in the NE, Angel Flight is probably more a matter of convenience than anything else, but here in the sparsely populated parts of the country it's a matter of life and death for many. Unfortunately, all too often they die anyway. Most of the patients I fly are very old and very sick. I've flown for Angel Flight a little over four years, and tonight I fly my 50th mission. Most of the people I have flown are dead. Once, I actually took a woman home (to someplace in Louisiana that was hours away from the nearest airport with commuter service) who was told by her doctors that they had tried all they had, and there were no more experimental treatments for which she qualified. All they could give her was something to ease the pain, and the local sawbones could do it just as well. They were sending her home to die. It is the nature of experimental treatments that most of the patients don't make it. Some do. Sometimes the patient pulls through. I recently heard from a patient who had not flown with us in months. When I first started, he would be here every week or two and I flew him several times. Then he sort of disappeared from the mission rosters, and I assumed the worst. He had some sort of leukaemia, after all. But it turned out he was simply down to a two visits a year now, for monitoring. He is in remission. Sometimes, you win one. It makes it easier to keep going. Michael |
#22
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"Peter R." wrote in message
oups.com... Gary wrote: Nope, not 'merely'. Just *largely*. The same amount of effort-- and especially money--directed elsewhere could do far more good. I disagree, but honestly I have never sat down and performed a cost-benefit analysis of AF versus the many other charities out there. It's a matter of relative benefit, which I think Gary already pointed out reasonably well. In developed nations, we spend an awful lot of resources (read, money) keeping just one person alive (and in many cases, they even want to be kept alive ), when those resources could be applied elsewhere to keep thousands, tens of thousands, or more alive. This sort of analysis can be applied to a variety of things we do as developed nations; it's not unique to Angel Flight. But it definitely applies to Angel Flight (and similar charity work). I'm not passing judgment (nor does it appear that Gary is). But like Gary, I agree that it's helpful to at least keep things in perspective. Pete |
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