Doctors successfully separate twin sisters

[Catchawave]

SALT LAKE CITY - Doctors successfully separated 4-year-old twin sisters born fused at the midsection, with just one kidney and one set of legs, and were continuing with reconstruction surgery early Tuesday.


Kendra and Maliyah Herrin were separated after nearly 16 hours of surgery at 10:50 p.m. Monday, which was about an hour earlier than had been expected. Ten minutes later, Kendra was moved to a separate operating room and the single surgery became two separate procedures.

"It's exciting they're doing really, really well," said Rebecka Meyers, chief pediatric surgeon at Primary Children's Medical Center. "When a patient does well, it's awesome. It's what you hope for."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060808/ap_on_he_me/conjoined_twins;_ylt=AnhMzS1UWJGrZVlB799JFoms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

[DocSavage]

1. Very good

but does this mean that US health care is not as bad as many here say? Do you think it is as good or better than Cubas'?

IMO, in the counties with "free" heath care like cuba, the twins would have been dead long ago. No need for this surgery.

You get what you pay for, and the idea of free heath care scares me to death.

[WyLoochka]

2. Huh?

Universal health care is not the same thing as "free health care". No one in their right mind has proposed "free health care" to my knowledge. Universal health care would just apply the "Law of Large Numbers" to the problem we have, i.e. instead of 1500 different, expensive, cherry picking, admin heavy, inefficient, bureaucratic private insurance plans we would all be in one large, efficient risk pool.

We are talking about insurance here, the larger the numbers in the risk pool, the more affordable the premiums and treatments. That's the way insurance works. Private insurance works fairly well for property and casualty with some exceptions, but it totally sucks for health.

[Catchawave]

3. Just trying to share some good news !

I'm just so relieved for this family that the procedure seems to be going well :hi:

[WinkyDink]

4. I hope they're not 2 0f the 100,000 that die of U.S.hospital-acquired

infections---ANNUALLY.

[DocSavage]

5. That

equates to an amazing 0.002%. I will take a guess that the infection rate in Cuba is higher.