in order to save (or maybe just prolong by a few years) the life of Lakshmi Tatma - Wikipedia, who was born as a really messed up conjoined twin, an Indian hospital spent $600K for a 30 hours long surgical operation. Why do you think they did that instead of spending a similar amount of money on subsidizing much more low cost operations (possibly also of the life saving sort) for a lot more poor people? Do such high profile cases generate valuable prestige for the donor? Or do the doctors just really want to practice exciting high end surgery regardless of opportunity costs?
I assumed it was, in a way, research. Developing better and better ways to separate the very few conjoined twins that form. You know, to advance human knowledge. You can conjecture that, just as much as you can conjecture that the people want prestige, and excitement. I know she’s just a baby, and in a very poor area, but I assume she, and the next difficult parasitic twin, are going to be grateful the more normal her life is.
Charities, by definition, give away money to (hopefully) make the world a better place. Obviously, different people have different definitions of what a better world looks like. Some people hear a sad story about a dying child and want to give money to grant a last wish, even though a more rational person might think “why bother? He’ll be dead anyway in six months so why not spend the money on something more permanent?” There is no right answer.
Same thing with the operation. Some people think it’s better to help one heart-wrenching story like in your example. Others think it’s better to spread the money around and help many stories that aren’t as dramatic.
Really, it comes down to “if you’re giving away your money to a charity, then you should be allowed to give it to anyone you want”.
Because on a humanitarian level, people with rare conditions that require expensive treatment deserve help, too. Fortunately nobody really has to choose between one or the other.
There’s also a phenomenon that my health policy teacher referred to as ‘the baby in the well.’ People can set health spending policies all they like, but when push comes to shove, we’re wired to be much more sympathetic to concrete individuals than we are to abstract groups. When presented with one touching case, we are willing to spend whatever is necessary to help, even if that kind of spending doesn’t buy the most health for the most people.
from a purely mercenary sense the publicity from that case may well have brought far more than $600,000 in to the charity in new donations… which they can then spend on less glamourous cases.
There are future returns on this. Think of this $600K operation as research. Maybe the next time it’s needed, it may only cost $400K. Eventually the techniques get so refined that, although it’ll never be as cheap as a hernia operation, it’ll become more mainstream and hence more accessible to those who need it.
I’m sure when Christian Barnard did the first heart transplant, people might have raised eyebrows at the cost. Now it’s done everyday.
Hi profile cases generate revenue for a hospital by making them well-known - people donate to places they’ve heard of & expect to do good work. Also, like some people have already mentioned it’s research, too, and research of any kind doesn’t come cheap.
Also, $600K isn’t as much as you think, for the type of hospital that would have the equipment to do such an operation. It’s a large amount for one case, but in a given year, the non-profit where I work gives rought 3 times that much to the hospital we support - and that’s aside from the free & subsidized care the hospital supplies from their own budget. MOST of that money goes to funding lots of smaller programs that help patients with many aspects of care. Some will go to more expensive cases.
It’s not that charities aren’t spending money on smaller cases, but they’re not publicised nearly as much. You won’t see a news story on a hospital buying asthma supplies for underpriveledge school children, for example, except perhaps in a small local paper.
And if you have the funds, most charities won’t just ignore an expensive patient who is dying in favor of possible future programs they might be able to fund - if there is an immediate need, that is more pressing.