With all of the lousy stuff going on, wanted to share are real class act, on multiple levels. Link below, but long story short, Polish javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk has auctioned off her silver medal for $125,000 to help an infant get life-saving cardiac surgery in the US. The winning bid was from a store chain that then said they want her to keep the medal. Not surprised that the chain did that, kind of figured the winner would, but still a class act all around.
https://www.espn.com/olympics/trackandfield/story/_/id/32040807/polish-j...
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And as a side note, she is a cancer survivor herself.
Too bad she didn't get the gold
This is a truly heart warming story, but it is an interesting world we live in when an Olympic athlete has to auction off something that she worked her whole life for just to get a child life saving surgery.
I'm not sure the tone should be "just to get a child life-saving surgery". This is sending a kid from Poland to the U.S. to get surgery. So any statement will invariably be what someone chooses to read into it.
It's a nice gesture on the part of the Olympian, and it turned out to be a real "win-win" kind of thing, since she'll get to keep her medal.
I hear you, but the point still stands. It does not make sense for a child to have to depend on the kindness of an athlete in order to get life saving surgery.
I don't know what point you're trying to make.
That for a child in need getting their surgery shouldn't be something that's in question.. At least for a society that prioritizes sick children..
Don't want to go out of bounds here but seems like common sense.
Not trying to be snarky here, but as a resident of the third world, you see this all the time. The need for quality medical care far, far outstrips the supply of doctors and hospitals that can provide it. Many countries have rules that require physicians to donate significant percentages of their time working in public hospitals without compensation in order to practice in that country. It still doesn't come close to meeting the demands. Poland isn't exactly third world, but they likely have a two-tier medical system of public and private hospitals. Advanced care in the former is probably difficult or impossible to obtain, while care in the latter is cash only. It sucks, but that is reality in much of the developing world. Too many people, not enough doctors. Americans are so blessed.
Thank you.
As far as I can tell, nobody here knows the particulars of this situation, or is in a position make some kind of general conclusion from it.
It's a nice gesture from the athlete, but it does raise some interesting questions about priorities, given that Tokyo spent a rumored $15.4 billion dollars on the 2020 Olympic games.
And probably lost 14 billion due to the travel restrictions and overall bad job done with the Olympics.
You must not have heard yet that rapid political takes against anything America is the cool thing nowadays. That includes snark comments veiled in empathetic humanitarian tones. This thread should already be shut down.
Uh there were no rapid political takes made against anything America though? Just a comment that it would be nice if children could get life saving surgeries without Olympic athletes needing to donate money.
No one disagrees that children should always get treatment. That also extends beyond children. But the reality is not so easy, unfortunately. The tone of the above commenters is to make a point that such inequity is somehow a fault of our healthcare system.
It says Poland in the title, the discussion was not about the US.
But you're now insinuating that poor health outcomes here are not the fault of the healthcare system...
Crazy to me a subject that can be empirically proven is considered political. Really calls into question where is the dividing line between political and common sense. Would arguing flat vs round earth be considered political now.
Yeah you're gonna have to take the L on this one lol
C'mon man.
Dystopian nightmares repackaged as feel-good stories 💖
There are absolutely zero scenarios that involve people having to sell off prize possessions to afford life saving medical attention that could be considered a happy story.
I dont care that she got her medal back, this is tragic all the way around.
Good lord people. The doom and gloom from some about a variety of selfless acts and someone getting care because of it. Why can't people just be thankful for something good happening? It's like the recruiting threads on steroids.
It's much easier to just get mad online about it.
Yes, that is sadly true. I truly wonder what it must be like for some of these people who are just bitter, hate-filled people who live their whole life whallowing in their self-loathing or narcissisms or whatever it is. There was a big, whiny discussion on LinkedIn about how ugly Christmas sweaters were horrible for the environment and exploitive of low wage garment workers and ... I wrote back to one of them and asked, does he go to some website to tell him what meaningless thing he has to get enraged about that day or does he dream it up himself?