Summer Olympics and why I love Poland

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She follows on the heels of Piotr Malakowski, Polish discus thrower, who in 2016 auctioned off HIS silver medal to help obtain international treatment for a local boy with a rare cancer.

So far it’s Poland 2, Rest of World 0.

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That’s absolutely cool… but doesn’t Poland have socialized medical? Is their care not good enough?

Note: I AM pro socialized medicine, I’m just curious why this is a thing.

Good question.

Can’t speak to the current case cause I don’t know the particulars on the kid’s heart surgery needs.

In the earlier case though, the boy in question was 8 or maybe 10, had some rare sort of cancer and no one in Poland had much expertise with it. He was expected to lose his sight and no treatment was available to stop that. Evidently there was a clinic in another country that was having some level of success in treating the condition and the athlete was willing to gamble. I don’t know how that case turned out, only that the kid was sent over borders to get the treatment.

It’s like my local VA medical center which currently no longer has a urologist on staff, so if I have an issue with adrenal glands they either must send me to another regional VAMC or offer me “community care” usually closer.