47 intercepted at sea sent back

[okarol]

47 intercepted at sea sent back

By ERIKA BERAS
eberas@MiamiHerald.com

A group of 48 migrants were intercepted at sea last week. All but one -- who had medical issues -- were sent back to Cuba.

It was a busy week for the Coast Guard, according to officials, who discovered migrants at sea every day.

The largest group was interdicted last Tuesday, found 20 miles southof the Marquesas Keys, which are situated 30 miles west of Key West.

One of those migrants was allowed to stay -- Licett Sotolongo, who suffers from kidney problems and needed dialysis. She was transported immediately. Relatives say she is still at Kendall Regional Medical Center.

The other migrants were taken to Bahía de Cabañas in Cuba on Saturday.

URL: http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/31778.html

[Sluff]

Another article that makes one feel torn about either sending this person back to where they came from, or helping them for the common good of man.

[livecam]

The ease with which the illegal mentioned in the article was able to be placed on dialysis here is exactly the reason single payer medical care that covers "everyone" won't work in individual states or the country at large.  This person entered the country illegally fully aware of her medical condition but will likely be able to stay indefinetly on maintenance dialysis and will perhaps later receive a transplant, all at U.S. taxpayer expense.  If you don't know what maintenance dialysis in this country costs try $60,000 - $120,000 a year.  A transplant, followup, and lifetime immunosupressants are a large chunk more. You probably didn't know it  but a certain number of transplantable organs are allocated by UNOS to foreign nationals who are in the U.S. one way or another.

This sort of makes you wonder why we are so compliant as a nation in sending our hard earned dollars off to Washington or some state capital.  I don't think we're supposed to paying for this sort of stuff.

In my dialysis days I witnessed  the same sort of thing happen from the dialysis chair.  A middle eastern national had been in the country for a short while.  He was a fellow dialysis patient at unit X.  One day he wasn't there anymore so I asked what had happened.  He had been transplanted at taxpayer expense at a local center known as the one that transplanted alot of foreign nationals. 

A couple of years went by and the topic of this individual and his health came up in conversation with unit staff.  I was shocked when I was told "didn't you know, he's gotten two kidneys and a heart"!  Holy .... I couldn't believe it...but...it happens.


 

[Sara]

I thought Cuban refugees were allowed to come here?  I know with Haitians if they step on dry land they are allowed to stay but if they are caught at sea they're turned back.