

Donate to help a MySQler - dragonquest
http://www.mysql.com/about/help-ivan.html

======
wheels
Does anyone else find it a little disheartening that despite being hosted on a
MySQL / SUN site, and despite this meaning that they're obviously not
providing his family with health insurance, that they're not even offering to
do any contribution matching? I'd hope for a little more from a small-ish
company that just got bought for a billion dollars.

~~~
Tichy
Yes, I admit I had the same thought. I would imagine if I was the CEO, I would
maybe just pay the bill. But who knows what other things there are, maybe that
kind of approach is not feasible.

~~~
run4yourlives
The biggest issue with that is that if you pay this bill, when someone else
wife gets cancer, do you pay that bill too?

I do agree though that they should be doing something other than asking
everyone else to fork over cash.

~~~
rantandalive
But MySQL/SUN is willing to host a donation page at their official site. Does
this mean they have this same ask-everyone-else-to-fork-over-cash strategy in
place for all contributors? With billions in hand, if they are willing to host
a page, shouldn't they pay the bill atleast to look 'non evil'?

------
bootload
_"... Donations are requested to help Andrii Nikitin, a MySQL support engineer
in Ukraine, provide for his son Ivan who requires a bone marrow transplant
operation. The cost of this operation is expected to be between €150,000 -
€250,000 ($235,000 - $400,000). Please help us provide Ivan a chance to live
..."_

I know this could be seen as a heartless gesture but has anyone verified with
MySql that Andrii Nikitin is who the page claims? I know this is shown off the
mysql site but that's just a webpage. Does anyone personally/professionally
know Andrii? Does anyone know Andrii at MySql?

It would help greatly Anreii's cause if MySql "officially" set up an MySql
postal account allowing non paypal money orders, cheques etc to be passed on
if they use MySql by name.

~~~
aneesh
His name is on some MySQL bug
reports.(<http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=32930>)

There's also an address for postal mail, and info for wire transfers
(<http://www.theopenforce.com/2008/07/andrii-nikitin.html>)

I agree, they should perhaps add this information to the main MySQL site.

------
azharcs
I will tweet and maybe blog about this. I really can't help him much with the
money part, but the least i can do is show it to people who have money.

~~~
mileszs
I'm not sure why you are getting down-voted. I think some people find the idea
of being poor inconceivable. Perhaps some people think that if you can post on
the Internet, you should be giving money away.

In any case, I know from whence you are coming. I'm sure the family would
appreciate your efforts regardless. Advertising for the cause is absolutely
helpful, as most Hacker News posters should know.

~~~
azharcs
I really don't know why i am getting voted down. I am curious actually. I told
a logical thing, I didn't have any money in my paypal because i had withdrawn
almost all of it. But i also wanted to help him, so said will tweet and blog
about it. Doesn't mean when i get funds in my paypal in a day or two, i
wouldn't give him.

~~~
petercooper
Since you're curious.. I didn't vote you down (the post is too old now) but if
I were to have, it'd have been because your post didn't say anything; it just
stated the obvious.

------
giardini
The price quoted sounds high even for the USA.

[http://ezinearticles.com/?Bone-Marrow-Transplant-Costs---
For...](http://ezinearticles.com/?Bone-Marrow-Transplant-Costs---For-
Around-$30,000-and-World-Class-Surgery&id=167381)

says it can be done much cheaper in India.

This is not leading-edge medicine today (it was perhaps 10 years ago). But
medical centers still try to charge leading-edge prices.

Yet another reason we need a national health care in the USA - to get doctors
out of their Mercedes, off the golf courses and back into medicine for
medicine's sake.

~~~
newt0311
"medicine for medicine's sake."

Point 1: What do you think doctors are? Saints? They are human like the rest
of us and would rather work for cash. They would probably also do better work
if they were doing so for their own good. Case in point: Who had more food
during the 1950-1980s. The US or the USSR?

Point 2: What makes you think that national health care will make doctors
magnanimous? Just switching the payer from individuals to the govt. (which
gets its cash from individuals anyway) doesn't magically change people. If we
get national health care, doctors will probably start doing exactly what
government unions have done: invest in lobbyists.

PS. The patient is in Ukraine. How will changing the US health care system
help him?

~~~
giardini
Let's talk about the US only for argument's sake.

Point 1: Today's doctors are for the most part motivated by $. This was not so
even as early as 50 years ago. We need more doctors and need to pay them less.
Part of the solution: increased specialization, reduced time in medical school
and a different form of health care system. This is a complex problem. The
best short summary I have found is available at [http://www.strategy-
business.com/press/article/07110?gko=564...](http://www.strategy-
business.com/press/article/07110?gko=56480&tid=230&pg=all)

Scroll down and read especially "Redefining Competition" about Porter and
Teisberg's ideas.

Point 2: By reducing the income of doctors, we'll rid the system of the
greedheads currently running the HMOs, the medical centers and the cancer
institutes. People who enter medicine will be people more interested in
medicine and less in accumulating a fortune. The financial motivation to get
into medical school is simply too tempting currently in the US. Pre-med
students are the only group in whom I have seen intentional sabotage of other
(pre-med) students' work. Even worse, most pre-meds expect such behavior as
normal. And consider Senator Bill Frist, M.D. repeatedly strangling kittens he
obtained from the local Adopt-A-Pet in the bathroom sink to get an edge in
medical school. Is this normal behavior? For today's pre-med or medical
student it apparently is.

Once MDs are knocked down a notch (both in pay scale and consequently in
social status), PhDs will once again be able to dominate laboratory research,
where they are far, far better than are MDs (who unfortunately currently
dominate). We may finally get decent medical research for our government
dollars. Doctors are bad researchers: their training is as scholars (i.e.,
they read and memorize books, books and more books) and they are good at
spitting back what they've read. Training as a doctor usually destroys the
ability to think independently and do good research.

PS: The original article says treatment could be in the US. I took the
opportunity to make a statement about the US health care system and how
expensive it is. But FWIW certain changes to the US health care system would
make it cheaper for anyone who could use that system.

~~~
anamax
> Today's doctors are for the most part motivated by $.

Not any more so than any other field. Me - I want a doctor who is smart enough
to have done something else and smart enough to say "pay me what I'm worth".

> We need more doctors and need to pay them less.

Unless you're going to break the monopoly on services that can only be
performed by doctors or the medical school monopoly, you're not going to
reduce income without introducing more scarcity (they'll do something else and
won't be replaced).

The "universal health care" advocates never mention that the federal, state,
and local govts directly control about half of the US healthcare spending and
cover about half of the covered people. If you're going to argue that govt
healthcare can be better/cheaper, that can be done today with those resources.

As it is, they're arguing that they'll be able to cover more than twice as
many people for about 50% more money. How about demonstrating that and opening
up the govt system to outsiders for cost? If you're right, the private system
will either become as good or die.

~~~
giardini
I cannot address complaints about your imagined concept of universal health
care. Perhaps next time you'll respond to my post, rather than your
imagination.

Such methods as training doctors less and allowing specialization earlier,
eliminating situations where doctors are currently required, tracking and
publishing doctors' success rates, allowing pharmacists to write
prescriptions, etc. all would reduce doctors' income and weaken the medical
school monopoly. Many more students would enter medicine since, while it
wouldn't pay as much, it would pay well, and the requirements and time needed
to enter the field would be significantly reduced.

And please read [http://www.strategy-
business.com/press/article/07110?gko=564...](http://www.strategy-
business.com/press/article/07110?gko=56480&tid=230&pg=all)

Scroll down and read especially "Redefining Competition" about Porter and
Teisberg's ideas.

------
anewaccountname
Serious question: why should I donate for this cause when I can donate for
vaccines or famine relief and literally save orders of magnitude more people?

~~~
rms
You could help a lot if you just called or emailed Sun and told them.

There are a lot of email addresses and phone numbers for Sun PR people here,
I'm sure they would like to know about this story.
<http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/contacts/index.jsp>

~~~
petercooper
They'd like to know about a story from their own company?

------
isaacewing
If I had money I would donate, I don't like PayPal and don't like using them
unless I have to, they should setup alternate payment methods so people have a
choice on which one they prefer to use.

------
codeLullaby
Its possible to do bone marrow transplantation for approx. $10000 here in
Kerala(South India). The service is world class. Can someone close to
MySQL/SUN pass this information?

Here is a press report :
<http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/04/stories/2005080411550300.htm>

The hospital: <http://lakeshorehospital.com>

------
Tichy
Wish they wouldn't use Paypal.

~~~
mileszs
I will admit to having added incentive _because_ they were using PayPal. I
know there are drawbacks, but I had funds readily available in PayPal.

------
yan
Hmm donated via paypal but get this after reaching mysql's site:

Checkout Cannot checkout because you have no items in your cart

~~~
matthewking
I got the same, probably just because they've hooked it up using their default
paypal options.. Got the receipt for the donation though so it goes through
fine.

~~~
paulgb
Same happened to me. Got the message but still got the receipt.

------
rokhayakebe
Once again HN proves that its community is not only made of smart individuals,
but caring and thoughtful individuals. I am glad I am here.

------
rw
Increases in guaranteed human rights _must_ keep pace with technological and
moral development.

~~~
ckinnan
Guaranteed human rights reduce the speed of technological and moral
development.

~~~
run4yourlives
Moral Development isn't moral if it infringes on human rights. Therefore you
are incorrect.

------
PieSquared
Huh. That site repeatedly made my Firefox (V3) crash. 5 times in a row.
Weird...

~~~
fish
Confirmed (as weird), it works fine for me.

------
jdbeast00
its a good thing that doctors accept payment in tweets

------
sophist
Wow, that picture is really manipulative.

~~~
dgabriel
The child we are being asked to help is on immuno-suppressants, and is, of
course, required to be shielded from germs as much as possible. You're just
not going to get a stock photo of baby hugging a goat.

~~~
sophist
So you're saying they didn't intentionally compose this picture in such a way
as to increase the likelihood that people will donate?

This is not hacker news. There are lots of kids out there who are in just as
much need of help. This one just happens to have a father who works on an open
source product.

~~~
dmoney
> _So you're saying they didn't intentionally compose this picture in such a
> way as to increase the likelihood that people will donate?_

If it was your kid, wouldn't you?

~~~
sophist
Of course. I was merely making the point that it's manipulative. Not that it
shouldn't be.

------
tx
I submitted this to Reddit. Vote up:
<http://www.reddit.com/info/6sclv/comments>

