St. Jude does wonderful work. We did not go to St. Jude’s, but our hospital, like the overwhelming majority of hospitals in America, it is not-for-profit. The first thing we were asked was “will you need help paying for this?” Not “show us your insurance or leave!”
I don’t know the life stories of all the people we saw in the waiting rooms over the years, but many of them did not speak English, and I suspect that they did not make a lot of money, and may not have had insurance. But there they were, with us, receiving the same state-of-the-art care.
God bless you, WVNan.
Thank you. We both belong to a most unfortunate club. The day doesn’t pass that some reminder is there. How brave they were, and how funny at times. I’ll always remember how my son was telling his friend about his ambulance ride to the hospital when he knew he was nearing the end. He was relating the ineptitude of the EMPs and had everyone laughing hysterically. He was 22 and the oldest patient that St Jude had ever treated because he had a cancer that usually strikes younger children and they wanted him there because they feared that the cancer was making a leap to older patients. He donated his body to the hospital for research. It was his decision. Freedom.