Health Care for Afghan Refugees
What an interesting world we live in!
Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach) can arrange for Afghanistan refugees needing orthopedic and plastic surgery care to be flown thousands of miles to the United States, where well-intentioned doctors and hospitals offer free services and care to these “freedom fighters.”
The poor, the sick and the needy in our own country and, indeed, in our own county, on the other hand, may have no access to doctors or hospitals for medical management of life-threatening situations.
I wonder how our priorities got so confused? Shouldn’t the dollars that are being expended to bring these people to the United States be used to take care of our own?
If we don’t take care of our own, will the Third World nations start an airlift to care for our poor and our sick in their countries?
SANFORD H. ANZEL, MD
Orange
Anzel is a clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at UC Irvine.
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