
American with No Medical Training Ran Center for Malnourished Kids. 105 Died - JPLeRouzic
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/09/749005287/american-with-no-medical-training-ran-center-for-malnourished-ugandan-kids-105-d
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gus_massa
>> _She needed a blood transfusion. And fast._

The part about the blood transfusion confuses me. How common is that a small
"health center" without a doctor makes transfusions? Here in Argentina the
nurses only do the invasive procedures after a medical doctor has prescribe
it. [1]

In particular, think it's very strange that a small "health center" has stock
of blood for an immediate transfusion.[2] Did they make blood transfusion
often?

[1] The nurses are usually much better finding the vein an the practical part
of the procedure than the doctors.

[2] I hope they did a blood group test before the transfusion. I guess they
didn't mention this to keep the article short. The test is fast and cheap but
IANAMD.

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arkitaip
She got children killed by performing random medical procedures on them. She
literally had to Google symptoms because she had no clue what she was doing.

~~~
sdenton4
Dunning-Krueger is a hell of a drug...

~~~
mkagenius
.

~~~
zaat
Is there a long held tradition as well as laws requiring 7 years of
specialized education before treating RO filters? Does your RO filter have
central nervous system?

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donatj
1 in 9 severely malnourished children died. I am genuinely curious how that
would actually compare to a hospitals efforts? I’ve no idea the odds of
survival for these poor children.

~~~
deogeo
That's what journalists are for - to give numbers without context. But unlike
the woman in the article, they _do_ have education on what they're doing, so
they can't blame ignorance.

~~~
lancewiggs
The article explains that the death rate went down when they hired appropriate
medical staff. The stats are there to see.

~~~
deogeo
Fair enough - though from my experience (not counting articles on economics),
this makes this article an exception.

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kopos
This

Imagine, says Kwagala, if a 20-something Ugandan woman had gone to the U.S.
and set up an equivalent arrangement to treat impoverished American children.

"She would have been prosecuted. She would have been behind bars,"

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dockao
#weaponizedstupidity, exported. Using the ignorance defense, no doubt

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marmaduke
> "The American cultural narrative is that these countries are basket cases."
> And so, says Gostin, Americans assume that whatever their qualifications,
> they're sure to be of help.

I didn't grow up with this narrative at home, but I sure did and do see it a
lot.

~~~
arkades
It’s upsetting to see how prevalent it is even in this thread. More than a few
people are jumping in without having read the article to simply support that
same narrative - better a random white lady than nothing!

For what it’s worth, for every ridiculous naive fool out to pat themselves on
the back, there are people out there actually working -with- local communities
to try and build up sustainable improvements to local infrastructure so people
can help themselves. Project Alianza is one of my favorite programs in this
space.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccJfzS13ZtA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccJfzS13ZtA)

~~~
gridlockd
> More than a few people are jumping in without having read the article to
> simply support that same narrative - better a random white lady than
> nothing!

There's actually only two people making this sort of argument in this thread.
One person claims it outright. The other person is me.

I have read the article. I'm saying it's _possible_ that more children would
have died without her care, than with her care. That's just a fact. The
article mentions that other local facilities also had death rates of up to
20%. Why would people keep visiting her if there was a better alternative?

> For what it’s worth, for every ridiculous naive fool out to pat themselves
> on the back, there are people out there actually working -with- local
> communities to try and build up sustainable improvements to local
> infrastructure so people can help themselves. Project Alianza is one of my
> favorite programs in this space.

How do you know that? What do you actually know about Uganda and who works
there? Project Alianza doesn't work there.

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sudmh
If she wouldn't have taken care of the 940 severely malnourished children,
more than 105 of them would have died.

~~~
addicted
I don’t know if you read the article, but she was performing medical
procedures with absolutely no training.

The care part may have been ok to good. But stuff like performing a blood
transfusion on a 9 month old and then not being sure whether the baby was
having a reaction because “google says there should be a rash if there is a
reaction, but I see no rash” isn’t just insane, it may be torture.

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dhbradshaw
Hospital with many fully trained staff accepted patients who were terminally
ill. Thousands died.

~~~
dhbradshaw
Note: This is a reaction to the headline, which has an obvious statistical
problem and therefore smells dishonest. It's not a reaction to the story,
which has value in it's own right.

~~~
freddie_mercury
The internet doesn't need more hot take reactions to headlines. The internet
needs more people who read articles and comment on their actual content.

What's more, simply by reacting to the headline as you've done, you've
validated their choice of headlines. Journalists are more worried about apathy
to an article than anything else. Any engagement is preferable to no
engagement.

Finally, complaining about headlines on HN is not effective. It is essentially
preaching to the choir and little more than virtue & identity signalling on HN
at this point, since it happens on every single mainstream article that HN
discusses. If you believe that headlines of this type are pernicious then your
time & energy will do far more good talking about them in other contexts. For
instance, with your family over dinner or with friends while pursuing a mutual
hobby together.

~~~
dhbradshaw
Agreed. However, it also needs fewer headlines designed to invoke visceral
reactions based on bad statistics.

~~~
gus_massa
As a general recommendation, try to avoid oneliners in HN. It's better to
explain why the headline is wrong and why the article is interesting anyway.
Sometimes you can pick the subtitle or a sentence of the article and propose
it as an alternative title, and the mods may change it. Sometimes the only
sensible title can create be made out of thin air, but the chance that the
change is accepted is minimal.

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ourlordcaffeine
Not to be a killjoy but how is this relevant to HackerNews? HN isn't reddit.

~~~
Insanity
If it makes it to the front page, people find it interesting. HackerNews is
self-regulating enough with the voting system, so clearly it is of interest.

Does not seem off-topic to me.

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gridlockd
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
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
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.

