Category Archives: Around the World

“[D]eeply troubling” indeed

The Washington Post: A woman in a vegetative state for years gave birth. Police are investigating..

“A near-drowning had left the woman in a persistent vegetative state for nearly a decade. […] None of the staff were aware that she was pregnant until she was pretty much giving birth. […] The birth — and the sexual assault of a vulnerable individual that must have preceded it — has cast a harsh glare on conditions at a nonprofit organization that bills itself as a leading provider of health care for Phoenix’s medically fragile.”

I had a friend who was in a persistent vegetative state after a car accident – for fifteen years. She passed away almost two years ago. I hope that the case above is investigated thoroughly so that mistreatment like this cannot happen again. This must be horrible for her family and friends – and for the new baby, once it grows up and learns about its origin.

“[H]aving to make a choice, when no good options exist”

NPR: To Get Mental Health Help For A Child, Desperate Parents Relinquish Custody.

“The family had private insurance through Jim’s job, and Daniel also had Medicaid coverage because he was adopted. But neither insurance would pay for that treatment. Exhausted and desperate, the Hoys decided to relinquish custody to the state. If they sent Daniel back into the foster care system, the child welfare agency would be obligated to pay for the services he needed.

“To this day, it’s the most gut-wrenching thing I’ve ever had to do in my life,” Jim says.”

This reminded me of an episode of This American Life that aired in the spring of 2018:

This American Life: 643: Damned If You Do…

“And then she heard about another option, a radical one, a last resort. Eileen talked to a mom who had been in a similar situation to hers, Toni Hoy.

And what Toni had done to get her kid treatment was give up custody of him, hand him over to the state. Once the state takes custody of a child, they have to provide mental health care. It’s a perverse legal loophole that exists in a bunch of states. It’s called a psychiatric lockout. It’s meant to ensure that kids who are abandoned by their parents end up with the care that they need.

But instead, desperate parents like Eileen are using it as a last-ditch effort of making sure their kids get treatment. It’s called a lockout because it’s as if the kid has been locked out of their house. Some child welfare workers even tell parents to do it. It’s called lockout coaching.

The way it would work is the next time Noah was hospitalized, Eileen would refuse to pick him up and bring him home. Eventually, the state would take custody of him and pay for him to live in a residential facility. And that was it. Technically, it was easy. Emotionally, of course, it was much harder.”

Turns out Eileen spoke to the family from the NPR article above about how to get help for her son.

Auch drei Jahre später noch ein aktuelles Thema

WDR Doku/Deutsche Welle et al: My Escape / Meine Flucht – Eine Doku, gefilmt von Flüchtlingen. 90minütige Dokumentation von 2016, jetzt auf YouTube veröffentlicht.

“Hunderttausende von Menschen fliehen nach Deutschland. Hinter ihnen liegen Bürgerkrieg und Verfolgung. Auf der Suche nach Sicherheit begeben sie sich auf eine lebensgefährliche Reise. Für viele dieser Flüchtlinge ist das Mobiltelefon ein unverzichtbares Mittel zur Organisation ihrer Flucht. Doch darüber hinaus ermöglicht es den Menschen, ihre riskante Route zu dokumentieren. Der Dokumentarfilm hat Fluchtgeschichten gesammelt und lässt die Flüchtlinge selbst sprechen. So entsteht ein eindrückliches Bild aus nächster Nähe, von Menschen, deren Verzweiflung sie nach Europa treibt – ungeachtet aller Gefahren.”

Astro-Alex ist zurück auf der Erde

Deutsche Welle: Deutscher Raumfahrer Alexander Gerst wieder auf der Erde. “Nach fast 200 Tagen im All ist der deutsche Astronaut Alexander Gerst mit zwei weiteren Raumfahrern wieder sicher auf der Erde gelandet. Die Mission hatte es in sich.”

In English:
German astronaut Alexander Gerst returns to Earth from ISS, again. “After his second mission to the International Space Station, Alexander Gerst has returned home. He sent some thoughts about the state of the world before he left the station above the planet.”

ESA auf YouTube: Alexander Gerst: Nachricht an meine Enkelkinder [with Closed Captions].

” Wunderbar Together”?

The New Yorker: How Trump Made War on Angela Merkel and Europe. “The German Chancellor and other European leaders have run out of patience with the President.”

Link via MetaFilter.

“Europe has had many fights with American Presidents over the years, but never in the seven decades since the end of the Second World War has it confronted one so openly hostile to its core institutions. Since Trump’s election, Europe’s leaders have feared that it would come to this, but they have disagreed about how to respond to him. Many hoped to wait Trump out. A few urged confrontation. Others, especially in nations more vulnerable to Russia, urged accommodation. (Poland offered to name a new military base Fort Trump.) Macron tried flattery, and then, when that failed, he reverted to public criticism of Trump-style nationalism.

The challenge from Trump has been especially personal for Germans, whose close relationship with the United States has defined their nation’s postwar renaissance. Merkel grew up in Communist East Germany and credits the United States as essential to the liberation of the East and to German reunification. As the head of Europe’s largest and wealthiest nation, she has sought to guide the Continent through the standoff with Trump, but has struggled, because the President’s harsh words reflect a painful truth: Europeans are dependent on the United States for their security and increasingly divided as Putin’s Russia threatens the nations in the east.