#i live in the US and don't have healthcare

[dlxxv-vetted-donations]

Don't Maram Ashour's children deserve to live with dignity?

My other promotion lists

Note: I do not often make posts for campaigns I am not focusing on, and I won't be updating this. I encourage others to adopt this campaign (because I can't right now) and make sure it gets the traction it needs.

Updated: Sep 20

Member(s): @ashourmohammed

Verification: link

Payment methods: Paypal, credit/debit

Summary: The Ashour family's 2 young children are traumatized as they've grown up knowing nothing but war. They all deal with inhospitable living conditions, but their youngest daughter (9 months old) is particularly at risk of disease (like polio) as she was born during displacement and received inadequate healthcare and vaccinations.

Current progress:

£ 1,826 / 25,000

Campaign/family details:

This campaign involves Maram Ashour, her husband, and their 2 young children Amir (3 years old) and Hoor (9 months old)

Funds are used for evacuation so the family can live a peaceful, dignified life.

The family live in a cloth tent that provides inadequate protection from the elements. My note: Many Gazans worry about the approaching cold weather.

Food is scarce whereas disease and insects are plentiful.

The family were displaced south of Gaza to the city of Deir al-Balah. During this, Maram had a difficult pregnancy and childbirth. Hoor was born in December.

She received inadequate birth healthcare and vaccinations. My note: This puts her at risk of polio like many other Gazan babies, which can be lethal.

Both children's lives are accompanied by constant bombing and explosions. Amir is terrified by them and has intense crying attacks when he hears them.

Maram asks "Don't my children have the right to live with dignity in a healthy environment and a stable life like the rest of the world's children?"

[existennialmemes]

Reject Toxic Positivity. Embrace

Cathartic Complaining

Save me your silver lining, now it's time for pout and whining.

Pretending your problems aren't problems isn't "having a good attitude." It's Denial. The word for that is denial. And it's way less useful than just complaining about what's wrong.

[awkward-teabag]

Love (cannot emphasis how much sarcasm there is in that word) that an official Canadian government response to high cellphone rates is to switch carriers.

Switch it to what? We basically have three companies since one was allowed to eat the forth (with the government saying it wasn't anti-competition and the company eating the other pinky promising they wouldn't jack rates up). Even the smaller companies have to rent infrastructure from the Big Three so there's only so much they can do if that rent costs an arm and a leg.

And that's not touching on how many "small companies" are actually just subsidiaries of the Big Three. You may save $5 but you're still with Telus/Rogers/Bell.

Or that the actual small companies tend to have shit coverage because they don't have the infrastructure available to them and are prevented from getting it. Or their traffic is throttled in favour of the Big Three's customers. Or both.

Or that they're extremely regional thus aren't an option for a huge chunk of Canada's population.

We have no true options and the government has shown time and again that they're fine with monopolies, in multiple industries, and don't care when said monopolies jack up prices to make shareholders and the c-suite more money at the expense of everyone else. At most there will be a verbal slap on the wrist and a giftcard for $25 that people have to register for, for a decade and a half of price gouging.

It's not talked a whole lot about outside the country from what I've seen and heard but Canada is a country of monopolies. A handful of companies own nearly everything, every province has a family or two that owns a hell of a lot (Nova Scotia is basically owned by one family at this point), and our government ignores it. Even the branch that is supposed to be against monopolies is fine with mergers and takeovers in most cases.

Because, you know, the company said it totally wouldn't use consumers' lack of options to increase prices.

[struck-by-the-rain]

terves love to fearmonger and throw hissy fits about "vulnerable autistic gay girls being manipulated into thinking they're trans/non-binary" and like... ok I'm sorry I've spent so many years growing up being treated as some weird, freaky little alien creature rather than as girl/woman, why are you mad that I'm embracing that label and being proud of it as who I am? why are you clutching your pearls so furiously about me walking away from a gender I never felt welcome or comfortable in, partially because of people like you? as much as you claim to be my "sister" or have good intentions for me I guarantee you were one of the kids who would have been treating me like a weird pet on the school playground, the way you talk down to autistic trans people like myself is one and the same as the singsong voice kids would use when they mockingly called me "their best friend!!!". you just hate autistic people having a backbone and autonomy and not having any authority over the weird kid at school anymore

[kay9leo]

Boggart

Because at 14, everything feels so long and permanent. Especially when the future is uncertain.

Honestly this was inspired by this post asking about your MC's boggart. I always figure that my MC's would fall into a more similar vein like Hermione where her boggart represents more of a symbol/idea.

When read up on reddit on Hermione's boggart was Professor McGonagall, someone pointed out saying that it's more of a symbolic thing when you look into it under a deeper light. With Professor McGonagall saying she failed all her classes, Hermione could get expelled from Hogwarts and get her wand snap. Essentially denying her from the wizarding world.

Since Hermione -a muggleborn witch- wants to belong in the wizarding world (when the muggle world rejected her), she is trying to prove that she deserve to belong in the wizarding world through her grades and by being at the top of her class. Hermione failing her classes could risk her getting kicked out and getting her wand snap. The McGonagall boggart failing her is symbolic of her true fear - belonging no where.

While Hermione a girl trying to belong somewhere and doesn't want to be kicked out, Iñaki is a girl who's afraid that she'll never go back home.

What's a more permanent way of saying you aren't returning to your home country by getting a passport (symbolizing that you got naturalized) of your adopted country? More about Iñaki "MC" Martinez Cariaga

[rxvera]

Sometimes I think people need to take a step back from arguing about Israel and Palestine all day and realize that there are much larger scale problems in the world. Everyone's become so focused one issue that they're willing to ignore and belittle the suffering of everyone else.

[anaalnathrakhs]

i'm going to be honest i have no idea what i'm going to do. i messed up my choices for higher education and now i have barely a couple days to pick between a cursus way too difficult for me, a highly specialized cursus with shit outcomes, and a leap of faith into whatever kind of gap year alternative can get me out of my parents' hair for the time being. note how i have no fucking idea what that alternative could be, or what path i'd like to take ideally. fun.

[jbweld]

npr's coverage of the ongoing war in palestine is the most jaw dropping and gut wrenching examples of liberal journalism i've ever had the opportunity to experience in real time

[chaotictomtom]

trying to check out to see if i'll ever manage to get top surgery this year and. let's just say i thought the delay would be bigger but. the price is still always such a big ass problem i kinda wanna bash my head against a wall but. anyway

[knaveofmogadore]

Some of us are never gonna look like our parents because we didn't eat paint chips or tan excessively or grow up in the time of lead gasoline or become alcoholics or pound 80 grams of the worst drugs the 80s had to offer or live in an era where our chronic illness can't/won't be treated or deal with repeated violations of OSHA's chemical safety laws over the course of 20 years or grow up with aerosols or the level of pollution our parents grew up with

THIS IS NOT A POST ABOUT GETTING WRINKLES. YOU WILL GET WRINKLES. THE ONLY SIDEWAYS STRAW I WANNA SEE YOU DRINKING OUT OF IS THIS [redacted]

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

the way my stomach turns just seeing this map (it shows the public vs private hospitals in madrid; red is public, blue is private)

[neverendingford]

.

[life-of-eris]

I just did some quick math and the motherfuckers I work for pay me literally exactly enough so that I don't qualify for medicaid. Bastards.

[sneepity-snoop-snorpity-sneep]

I HAVE SOME THOUGHTS ON HOW AMERICAN SOCIETY HANDLES MENTAL DISABILITY AND I HAVE DECIDED TO talk about it to myself on my blog at moderate volume

THOUGHT NUMBER 1!!

OK so i’m pretty sure anyone who’s thought about it knows that the medical community (and other industries connected to it, like the insurance dudes), don’t consider brain-malfunction conditions to be on the same tier as other forms of healthcare, and give less priority to funding those departments, which means even if you HAVE got a bunch of medical professionals in those disciplines who DO take that ish seriously, they’ve got immediate barriers between them and the folks needing their services. which sucks.

that one i don’t have an immediate fix for, cuz i don’t think there IS an immediate fix, especially with how many more people are needing mental health treatments/evaluations these days. but you know what COULD have a nice big drastic impact on how people as a whole see mental health AND ALSO how large of a burden untreated mental health problems put on american society??

MAKE. ANNUAL. MENTAL HEALTH. EVALUATIONS. A. NORMAL. THING!!

like what parents are supposed to do with their kids and dr appointments is at least once a year, hop in the car or on the bus, and take their kid to get a physical! thats a totally normal thing people do, the idea being “even if there wasn’t anything obviously wrong before the appointment, its just a good way to keep an eye on our children’s health and catch problems sooner if a serious one does turn up!

well folks, that idea of monitoring one’s health preventing a lot of problems from becoming problems in the first place would also work with any and all forms of neurodivergency!! like how many people who struggle with a brain illness struggle mostly due to the fact that they weren’t prepared for it!? i’m totally projecting here btw, cuz guess what happened to me even though i WAS tested as a kid!! this exact issue right here!

obviously, a lot of mental illnesses specifically can’t be counted on to show up when you're still in childhood, where once a problem is revealed its the adults around you who are supposed to take care of you and make sure you’re getting what you need. BUT!!! but but but but BUT

if you DID come down with a condition as an adult, but you’d already been somewhat familiarized with what symptoms WERE IN FACT symptoms, and common treatments/solutions for said symptoms, due to having regular psychiatric checkups with a dr throughout childhood?

well, odds seems pretty good that you’d be much better prepared for that condition if/when it did come along, and it would probably take less time to notice it too!

say nothing of the fact that this would do a lot to de-stigmatize mental health, cuz if u arrange ur healthcare system so it is No Longer Assuming That Neurotypicality Is The Norm, then EVERYONE’S got that knowledge too, and even for the people who haven’t got a form of neurodivergence and never will -  them having a similar stockpile of background knowledge and awareness of mental health as those who do have a condition will do a ton to remove the obstacles in the way of effective society-wide treatment of brain illnesses (both on the stigma side of things, and on the practical symptom-treating side)

THOUGHT NUMBER 2!!

so this party-popper of thought was specifically inspired by a post i saw but can’t find (NVM I FOUND IT :D) that listed neurotypical traits in a similar manner as autistic traits tend to be talked about - i chuckled at it and then went like hey, what if tho, what if that could actually have some practical applications?

specifically, what if that exact premise was used as a the foundation of a unit in health classes in public schools?

like i know that even if you get a health curriculum and teacher that does a fairly good job of talking about what they’re required/allowed to talk about, there just isn’t enough time given to go into detail about a lot of important shit, and in the classes i got at least, neurodivergency vs. neurotypical-ness was one of the things not discussed (most of the ones i got focused on healthy relationships, which they did a good-but-not-great job on)

but if you had even just a couple lectures where the teachers first explain what each one is, give a few examples of neurodivergent conditions, and then follow it up with a talk outlining the neurotypical traits and explaining why/how they’re neurotypical traits?? it could definitely have a similar effect as the theoretical benefits to Thought #1

it would potentially re-frame the lack-of-condition that is being neurotypical - like i feel like the way people see it as ‘normal’ and while i get how that’s the impression people end up with, i think that’s a bad way to try and categorize the different ways the human brain functions - cuz what does normal even mean??? it doesn’t really describe anything except that ‘this person doesn’t seem to have anything going on with their behavior, they must be normal’ which. uh. hi there high-functioning folks, how y’all doing on this fine fall afternoon?

like if i’d been made aware that a lot of the stuff i did that i knew was what made me ‘weird’ were actually full-on SYMPTOMS that i actually shared with a ton of other people!? lemme tell you, it would’ve made a BIG difference in how much i measured the scope my problems based on ‘i’m weird though, so this is to be expected’

 Even (or maybe especially) though i didn’t actually know anybody personally with the same conditions, because hey! i didn’t know many people personally who also had asthma, but i never developed any hangups around how that affected my physical needs. why would I??! i’d already met a bunch of doctors about it, gotten an inhalor for it, and knew it was a Condition and that i was far from the only kid who had it. there wasn’t any empty space in my knowledge that i was left to fill with my own assumptions, that if i was so perpetually inadequate it must just be a trait i had and there wasn’t any point in trying to logic my way out of that burden

it doesn’t seem like it would be particularly difficult to close that knowledge gap when it comes to how people look at mental illness and neurodivergency, even just by explaining what’s really going into being allistic, neurotypical, or ‘normal’ would go a long way towards dispelling the idea that people have absolute control over their brains and behavior, as well as just being a great way to get folks with undiagnosed going-ons in their grey matter to shake off any assumptions they’ve made about how they should look at themselves for not being normal

ok yeah, having lectures where u explain how a person is neurotypical the same way you’d explain how someone is neurodivergent won’t help people with brain conditions know which one they’ve got or what to do about it - but i feel like the greater gain here is disrupting the idea that being neurotypical or ‘normal’ is something that awards merit or pride.

no one who’s not-neurodivergent got that way because of something they personally achieved or did. it wasn’t a reward they received from the universe for being a Certified Good Boi, they got lucky! they didn’t do anything to personally earn a brain that functions and on the flip side of that, starting out with a brain that functions isn’t actually some form of magical protection from losing that functionality if ur good luck runs out - a lot of forms of neurodivergence aren’t ones you’re born with after all.

and even the ones that ARE, same logic applies!! autism, adhd, and other conditions aren’t metaphorical coal in ur stocking for being naughty, they just are. nobody gets a say in what stats they have at birth!! (honestly the control we have even under our own agency and mobility isn’t that influential on our circumstances a lot of the time)

basically i feel like u want to start regularly introducing the idea that the perception of ‘normal’ is coming out of very measurable things in people’s brains. A perception which really just seems like another lazy way of assuming that those who have a functioning brain won’t ever have to worry about losing that, like it’s an inherent trait to you as a person or something - newflash! it ain’t. your mind, personality, and behavior are not magical airy-fairy things detached from measurable factors, their roots are all held within your brain, and your brain is an organ which can get sick or damaged. Not only that, but since its a very complex organ to boot, it doesn’t take a very big change to cause big differences in functionality!!

like yeah in theory it would be great if you could explain the difficulties people with disabilities face to those with no personal stake in that, and have them have sufficient empathy to consider that as something that matters. And although I’m sure there ARE folks out there capable of that, there’s also a lot of folks out there who will let you down BIG TIME on that front, so i think another tactic to use when trying to combat ableism would be to start requiring curriculums that gives all the folks across the board a nice big sip of

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

wait, Derin how did your leaving make the hospital shut down?

I used to work as a live-in nanny for a pediatrician.

Now, the thing about hospitals in my country is that they are massively understaffed and massively underfunded. This is especially true outside the major cities. The staff are worked to the bone and receive little to no help in things like finding accommodation or childcare, making working in rural areas a very uninviting prospect; staff come out here, get lumped with the work of three people (because there's nobody else to do it), burn out under the workload and leave, meaning that those remaining have even more work because that person is gone. It's unsustainable and the medical staff are doing their best to sustain it, because people die if they don't, so to the higher-ups it looks like everything's getting done and therefore everything is fine.

My friend (and boss) worked one week on, one week off, swapping out with another pediatrician. This was necessary because it would not be physically possible for one person to handle the workload for longer periods of time. The one single pediatrician had to hold up the entire pediatrics ward, which was not only the only public hospital pediatrics ward in our town, but also the one that served all the towns around us for a few hours' drive in all directions. I regularly saw her go to work sick, aching, tired, or with a debilitating 'I can barely make words or see' level migraine, because if she took a day off, twenty children didn't get healthcare that day, and some of these kids' appointments were scheduled weeks in advance. She'd work long hours in the day and then be called in a couple of times overnight for an hour or two at a time (she was on-call at night too, because somebody had to be), and then go in the next day. Sometimes she would be forced to take a day off because she physically could not stay awake for longer than a few minutes at a time, meaning she couldn't drive to work.

Cue my niece's second birthday coming up in Melbourne. I'd been working for her for about 3 years, and she (and the hospital) had plenty of advance warning that I (and therefore she) needed one (1) Friday off. That's fine, we'll find someone to work that Friday, the hospital said. Right up until the last week where they're like "oh, we can't find a replacement; you can come in, can't you?"

No, she tells them; I don't have anyone to watch my kid that day.

Oh, surely you can hire a babysitter for this one day, they say. Think of the children! We really really need you to work that day. I know we said it'd be fine but we need you now, there's no one else to do it.

There are no other babysitters, she told them. Unless you can find one?

That's not our responsibility, they said.

But I'm not changing my plans, she's got plans by now as well, the hospital knew about this one day weeks in advance, and with absolutely no reserve staff they're forced to reschedule all pediatrics appointments for that Friday. Not a huge deal, it happens on the 'physically too overworked to get out of bed' days too. I go to Melbourne, she goes back to her home in Adelaide for her recovery week, all should be on track.

My niece gives me Covid.

This was way back in the first wave of the pandemic, and there were no Covid vaccines yet. The rules were isolate, mask up, hope. I had Covid in the house, and it would've been madness for my friend and her toddler to come back into the Covid house instead of staying in Adelaide. There was absolutely no way that a pediatrician could live with someone in quarantine due to Covid and go to work in the hospital with sick children every day. And no support existed for finding another babysitter, or temporary accommodation, so the hospital was down a pediatrician.

The other pediatrician wasn't available to do a three-week stint. They were also trapped in Adelaide on their well-earned week off.

Meaning that the only major pediatrics ward within a several-hour radius had no pediatricians. They had to shut down and send all urgent cases to Adelaide for the week. To the complete absence of surprise of any of the doctors or nurses; of course this would happen, this was bound to happen, it presumably keeps happening. But probably to the surprise of the higher-ups. After all, the hospital was doing fine, right? Of course all the staff were complaining of overwork and a lack of resources in every meeting, but they could always be fobbed off with the promise of more help sometime in the future; the work was mostly getting done, so the issue couldn't be too urgent.

It's not like some nanny who doesn't even work for the hospital could go out of town for a weekend for the first time in three years, and get the only public pediatrics ward in the area shut down for a week.

[sapsolais]

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