Re: Cost-benefit vs medicine

[Tuan V Nguyen <t.nguyen@garvan.unsw.edu.au>]

Hi anh Huy and friends,

>BTW, last year a state hospital in Britain refused to continue
>to treat a girl with leukaemia on the ground that it would be
>very expensive and she has little chance. It was a big national
>controversy. A philathropist stepped in and paid for her treatment.
>Unfortunately it wasn't successful.

	The issue that you reported is VERY VERY sensitive 
these days. You see, in the rational economic age such as 
now, things and even human, are evaluated in terms of 
dollars, under the euphimism of "cost-benefit". People, who 
advocate this concept, argue that if a person has a limited 
chance of suvival, then treatment won't bring any benefit and 
waste of money. They then say that the patient should be left 
in palliative care i.e. to wait for death. What a terrible 
idea! They even talk about quality of life (QoL) these days, 
and evaluate treatments based on QoL. 

	To me, this is one of the dreadful inventions of 
economists (is there any economist in VNSA here?). I mean, 
how can you place a value on a human being? What is the value 
of ethics? Answer: not evaluable. The task of medicine and 
physicians is to save and relieve human being from suffering 
regardless of the cost involved. Fullstop! 

	I hope the health care system in VN is not going down 
this way.

	Tuan