Doctor - With a heart for charitable work

Dr. Jeff Ho,

I want to take a moment to let others know how much I appreciate what Dr. Jess Jo is doing for the senior citizens and poverty stricken people of Davao, Philippines and surrounding areas.  I do not doubt  most doctors are concerned with the care they give their patience’s and want to do the best they can to heal them.  Doctor Ho goes far beyond what I have ever seen a doctor do in my nearly eighty years of life.  He puts medical care before a lavish life-style. He truly has a heart of charity and community concern.

I admit and apologize for wanting to leave when I first entered his office.  I was concerned.  It was not what I was used to.  It was very simple and honestly needs repairs.  I thought of leaving and I thank God I did not.  It is not the furnishing or structure that should be of concern when you seek medical care.  The only thing that should matter is the doctors ability and Dr. Ho certainly far exceeds the ability of many doctors.

To be quite honest I have not known Dr. Ho long, but in one week I saw remarkable change in my health issues.  I have heart, lung and kidney failure and Diabetes.  I was on 17 different medications and taking some twice a day.  My medicine bill was running about $1100 USA dollars per month.  I simply could not afford it any longer.  I also felt I was being poison by medicines.  I had discussed with my previous  doctors about my issues with medication to no avail.  It was like they were the doctor and I was the patient and if I knew so much why did I need a doctor.  I felt like it is my body and I should have a voice in my care.  Dr. Ho has listened to me and is trying to address my issues.

I was taking medication for my lung problems as needed and was hesitant to take it unless I was so bad I thought I would pass out.  He said use it morning and night and through out the day.  This has made a remarkable difference.  Others had told me to limit my fluid intake (water and broth from soups) to 1500 ml.  I simply felt this was not sufficient, but did as they said.  I am taking fluid medication to keep fluid expelled from my body.  Dr. Ho has allowed me to increase my water intake and I believe it has made a difference. I no longer feel dehydrated.   I have had a problem with my right lower leg for over two years.  I was told it was from Diabetes.  Dr. Ho advised me I cannot wear socks up over my ankles and prescribed exercises and increased my fluid medication.  I already see results. 

Of course time will tell, but in this short time I am grateful to Dr. Ho.  This may sound silly to some, but I was in such pain and unable to walk. I use a wheelchair. One morning I prayed to God to lead me to another doctor for another opinion.  I am a retired priest from the USA and I came to Davao after I was forced to retire because of health issues.  I did not really know how to find another doctor.  I went to the computer and searched for help.  Dr. Ho’s site came up immediately and I felt I should give him a try.  Thank God I did!

Dr. Ho provides free care for senior citizens and operates a free clinic on Saturdays for the poor.  He will see the poor and senior citizens anytime in case of an emergency.  The charges to regular customer or unbelievably small. Medical care is available to all because of this one giant of a man.  It is a shame that the Philippine Government or some Charitable Organization does not provide him support.  But, of course if they did they would want to take over his clinice and make all the decisions and destroy what the man has accomplished.

Please pray for Dr. Ho I know of no other doctor anywhere in the world and I have lived in many, many places that is as concerned about people as he is.  He truly lives what he professes.  I was floored when I had my caregiver call him about lab results he had requested and was told he and his wife had gone to wash clothes.  I know of no doctor that washes his own clothes.  I pray God blesses him and his family abundantly with joy, peace, love and protection.

Fr. Tom Martin - Retired

Stop waiting on God!

I am so tired of hearing people say, "Well, I am waiting on God."  Stop waiting on God and take action to solve your own problems. God is not going to do for you what God equipped you to do for yourself. I know a family that is "Waiting on God" to build a room on their small house so their mother will have her own room. Do they really expect God to deliver nails, hammers, saws and timber to their doorstep. They have internet, cable television and a car. They need to decide what is a priority and stop blaming God for their mother not having her on room.

God warned Noah and NOAH build the ark. Noah did not wait on God to build the ark. I do not take that story in the Bible literally, but it sure teaches me a lesson not to wait on God to do all the work.

In most cases if you do not have what you need it is because you have not taken action to solve your own problems. I know there are exceptions. The elderly, physically and mentally ill, children and people with special needs often need a helping hand, but if you are healthy and sitting around on your butt waiting on God remember -  the Bible says those that do not work should not eat.

IF YOU DO NOT BUILD IT GOD CANNOT BLESS IT!

Why do most of the poor remain poor?

 I think one reason the war on poverty cannot be won is a lot of people who are trying to address the problem see it as a ‘one solution fits all’ problem or that ‘one thing’ cause’s poverty. The one solution and one cause are generally thought to be the lack of money.

My caregiver who is Filipino was being critical of poor Filipinos. He made the statement, “If the poorest of the poor Filipino gets his hands on any extra money he will spend it on a party.”  I told him that problem is not unique to the Philippines. I worked with the poor in the United States for over forty years and witness the same thing over and over again. I would even say that the majority of the poor I worked with would do that. I have had many volunteers working with me on projects become so frustrated they would drop out because of it.

I admit it is foolish for the poor to waste money, but I really do not know if I had lived in extreme poverty month after month, year after year, if I would not want to take advantage of any extra money that came my way to celebrate. 

We know a family that has not had enough money to provide for the basic needs of their family for twenty plus years and recently one of their children got a job at a Call Center. The first thing they want to do is buy a new car. They have never owned a car in their life. To me that is foolish! To them it is about pride and ego it tells family and friends they are overcoming poverty.  They had a party to celebrate the father’s sixtieth birthday at a local café, they paid for the meals and drinks of friends and family, again foolish to me, but not to them. I do not understand their thinking, but they do not understand mine. I was taught to save for a rainy day and when I mentioned that to them they told me, “…every day is a rainy day for them.” Money alone is not a solution to their poverty. The more they have the more they will spend.

Dr. Ben Carson who is running for President in the United States believes that it’s okay to be born poor, but that anyone who stays poor is remaining poor because he or she is lazy. He also says that those poor people are trying to find excuses for their own laziness when they blame their adversities on other causes than themselves, such as the prejudices of others or wrong governmental policies or bad luck. Quite honestly, I have known share-croppers working on the farms of my family members around Alabama that regardless of how hard they work they will remain poor. I see Philippine men, women and children going around my neighborhood looking in trash bins for plastic and metal that they can sell and regardless of how hard they work they will remain poor.  There poverty has nothing to do with being lazy.

Dr. Ben Carson is another example of one solution fits all. He is for a ‘flat tax’ for raising revenue for the government. He believes rich and poor should be taxed alike ten percent (or a random number) on all income. He bases this on the Biblical tithe.  Dr. Carson is not the only U.S. politician for a ‘flat tax’. The ‘flat tax’ idea completely ignores the fact that the poor have more needs than desires and that the rich have more desires than needs. One dollar to the poor has far more meaning than one dollar to the rich. One dollar to the poor could mean a meal. I don’t think assuming or believing God wills wealth and poverty is a viable solution or that religion alone is a solution.

A new report states in 2013 77% of students from wealthy families earned bachelor's degrees by age 24, compared to only 9% of those from poor families. New research shows nearly half of the nation’s recent college graduates work jobs that don’t require a degree.

Is college a solution to end poverty? I think education is only a partial cure for poverty. I definitely do not think a college education by itself is sufficient to end poverty, but I do think programs that combine general education with specific training areas that meet the individual’s needs and the local labor markets needs work toward overcoming poverty. When I was in High School these classes were offered for those not planning to attend college, but the government has eliminated them from the curriculum.    

Of the 30 occupations adding the most jobs to our economy, those requiring the least training make up half of the total.  The low-wage sector of our economy will be the source of most of the job growth over the next decade and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Obama believes college and higher minimum wages are the solution to poverty and is willing to pour more tax dollars into college programs and use any action he can to increase minimum wages, but they are not a viable solution to end poverty. We will not educate our nation out of poverty.

Will government welfare programs eliminate poverty? They will not eliminate anything as they are presently administered. The government has spent $20 trillion on the “War on Poverty” but poverty rates are as high as they were 50 years ago. The present welfare systems are no longer safety nets they are snares that trap people in poverty and dependency.

The welfare system was never created as a single system like Medicare or Social Security. The welfare system is made up of 13 large programs, for instance housing assistance can take the form of public housing, rent vouchers, or tenant support and each administered by different government agencies. The 13 programs generally run independently from one another and are managed by 8 large agencies in Washington that generally don’t interact with one another.

Most of the 13 programs have their own qualification standards. They have separate forms, rules, compliance, audits, etc. Some work in conjunction with state or local programs and some are run completely independently.   

The poorest Americans are often the least able to navigate the complex welfare system. This is why there are so many homeless on the street existing outside the safety net that was built to protect them.  Benefits are not reaching those in extreme poverty and those in the middle class are often getting too much. It all comes down to knowing how to work the system.  Our welfare system is broken; it teaches the wrong values, rewards the wrong choices and hurts those it was meant to help.

The system has many flaws and no one in authority seems interested in correcting them. The welfare system discourages marriage because a loss in benefits can occur when two people marry.  For example a single mom with a minimum wage job could lose all of her benefits if is she marries a man earning $20,000 a year. Often the decision is made by the mom to just live with the man and keep the benefits. She lies on her welfare forms to cover up the fact a man is in the house and when caught, if caught, no legal action is taken.  Today’s welfare system discourages work because at certain income levels benefit loss is greater than additional income earned. Many of the programs penalize welfare recipients fifty cents for every dollar earned. Why would you work if in the end you are going to end up with the same amount you are getting from welfare without working?

There are very few Conditions attached to the welfare system. Conditions should include, work requirements, job training, school attendance and/or grades obtained, drug and alcohol testing or time restrictions on how long you can receive welfare. Without conditions the Welfare System does not encourage recipients to change their lives. Obama argues it is unfair to put conditions on welfare recipients that are not put on the general public – makes no sense to me.

I think Obama’s simplistic solution is just that too simplistic. Obama thinks there are just too many rich people, and they are causing all the poverty problem. So, he proposes, let’s take more money from the successful people and redistribute it to the poor. It is divisive because it fans the flames of envy and resentment. Punishing success will only deter further success and that is not what you want if you want the economy to grow.

The federal government can inefficiently redistribute money; it cannot redistribute success, character, personal satisfaction, dignity, purpose, perseverance or any of the qualities and outcomes that make life worth living. How much the top 1 percent of the population earns has no bearing on whether the bottom 20 percent can move up.

What we need is to reform our welfare system to promote work and individual success, not dependency on government. We need to put conditions on welfare assistance. All welfare assistance needs to be under one government department. We must eliminate marriage penalties in federal programs.  We need to encourage vocational training. We need to help low-income children and parents break free of bad public schools. We need to provide incentives for employers to hire welfare recipients as we do in some States for ex-cons. We need more case workers to eliminate the improper welfare payments, including fraud, that is estimated to be about 9.0% of all federal welfare payments made and totaled $59.6 billion in fiscal year 2014 (Office of Management and Budget General Accounting Office). We need mandatory sentencing for welfare fraud.We need tax reform that is not punitive, especially Corporate Tax reform. We need to stop playing politics and using welfare to buy votes and actually help the poor. 

Democracy - Oligarchy - Caste System?

I had a blog in 2011 and I stopped writing it and deleted most of the writings. I did it because I wrote an article that offended a newspaper reporter and an attack on me began. I said nothing in that blog that I had not heard Filipino friends say and that I had not heard on television or read in newspapers. I had been warned that foreigners do not have a voice in the Philippines and I foolishly ignored the warning. Now I am afraid that I am about to step into it again, but it is hard for me to ignore discrimination or injustice.

It may not be called a caste system, but in my opinion there is a caste system in the Philippines. I guess I should not let it bother me since it does not appear to bother Filipino’s, but it does.

The Philippines certainly is not India, but there is a distinction made between rich and poor, educated and uneducated, titled and untitled and having the right surname certainly will get you a lot of respect and privileges you may not deserve.

If you ask you will be told that the Philippines is a democracy, but I think oligarchy would best define it because it is well known and obvious that power is in the hands of a small exclusive class. This exclusive class are the rich.

I think people in the West would be surprised at how many Filipino’s have college educations. A college degree is no longer reserved for the rich. But, a college degree is not a guarantee that you will move up the social ladder. Most working in mall retail shops have a college degree. If you are from the right family and have a degree you will naturally go farther than if you are not. Your family connections are usually more important than your degree.

The uneducated are happy to get a job in farming or as maids, drivers, or child care provider. 

I have not and will not accept the cultural tradition that those who work for me should not eat at the table with me, eat at the same time I do, sit in the living room with me and watch television or carry on a conversation. They do not even want to enter through the front door because they think it disrespects me in front of my neighbors. My being a Christian and being a retired priest will not allow me to discriminate or disrespect anyone in that manner.

The Vice President of the country is looked down upon by some because of his dark skin. That reminds me of blacks in the United States who at one time thought the shade of their skin mattered. During the slave period dark skin blacks were not selected to work in the Masters house they were selected to do field work.  I have even heard some discouraging remarks made about Filipino-Chinese, but it appears to me that the Filipino-Chinese are the ones with the most money so that may be more jealousy than discrimination.

When I first moved to Davao the local bank employees told me that I did not have to wait in line or take a number. I could just walk directly to the counter. I had noticed that some people walked in and went directly to the counter while we all waited and it disturbed me, but I said nothing. Then when I was told I could do the same I became upset. I ask to speak to a bank officer and I ask why this was allowed. He laughed and said that is just the way we do it in the Philippines and you will get used to it. I have not gotten used to it and I continue to take a number and wait my turn.

This became an issue for me again when I ask a neighbor why they did not visit me anymore. They seem shocked that I ask and appeared to be embarrassed. I guess they thought the question made them lose face and that is another thing you do not do to a Filipino no matter how wrong he or she may be. I ask had I done anything to offend them and at first they said no. I kept insisting on them to tell me what the problem was and if I could fix it I would. They went on to explain to me they did not like it that I treated my ‘caregiver’ and ‘housekeeper’ as family or friends. I stood up and told them it was nice knowing them, but that was something I was not willing to change or fix for them or anyone else. I will love those Filipino neighbors from a distance from now on.

These neighbors call themselves devout Catholics and they are active in the church, and friends with all the priest in the parish, but obviously they do not know that Pope Francis warned the hierarchy of the church not to be “a closed caste” but to lead in reaching out to all who are rejected by society and the church. I would think the Pope intends for the laity to do the same.

The Philippines is a Catholic Nation and a Catholic should not accept or participate in a caste system regardless of what you may call it. If they do they are not being faithful to the teachings of Christ or the Catholic Church.

Pope John Paul II told visiting Roman Catholic bishops from India that Christians must reject divisions based on caste, saying any type of prejudices towards people violates authentic human solidarity and is a threat to genuine spirituality. Pope John Paul II also said customs or traditions that perpetuate or reinforce caste division or prejudices should be reformed. Are some groups of humans inherently superior to other groups? Not in God’s eyes.

The Jehovah Witness' strive not to participate in a class system. They recognize that social classes have no place in the eyes of God. Therefore, they have no clergy/laity division, and they are not segregated according to skin color or wealth. Although some of them may be wealthy, they do not focus on “the showy display of one’s means of life.”

Every Jehovah Witness accepts the responsibility to share in the work of preaching the good news of the Kingdom to his or her fellowman. Like Jesus, they honor the downtrodden and neglected by visiting them in their homes, offering to teach them God’s Word. Those with a humble status in life work side by side with those who may be viewed by some as upper class. It is spiritual qualities that count, not social class. As in the first century, all are brothers and sisters in the faith. We could all learn from them when it comes to discrimination.

The liberal Democrats in the United States are desperately trying to encourage class warfare in preparation for the 2016 election. The United States imagines itself as a classless society, based on a faith in natural equality – that all are “born equal. Even if there are wide inequalities in income, wealth or education, the bowing and scraping before the ‘upper classes, is completely unknown. Accusations of “elitism” are especially damaging in a culture that instinctively rejects the idea that certain people are born to rule, and others to be ruled.

In a self-defined classless society, people will naturally not want to separate themselves from their fellow citizens. That is why, according to Pew, almost nine in ten Americans define themselves as ‘middle-class’.

At its best, America displays the culture of a true civic republic in which, every individual can “speak their minds, walk tall among their fellows, and look each other squarely in the eye.” Somebody once remarked that the only thing different about rich people in America is that they have more money. They may be better off: but they are not better. This means that a certain respect is accorded to everybody, whether they are tending pumps in a gas station or moving millions on Wall Street. “Disrespecting” somebody is a social crime in a classless republic.

I was shocked at the pedestal priest are put on in the Philippines. That is not the case in the United States. If the priest says or does something the people do not like or agree with they have no problem telling him. Wearing a clerical collar does not guarantee respect in the United States and that is the way it should be.

 No doubt, American classlessness is overstated. But it remains real to some extent, but I am beginning to wonder if it will last. It appears that Democrats see creating division among the classes as a means to get votes. There is most definitely a lower class - middle class - upper class, but movement between the classes is allowed and I do not see that ending. With hard work - education - determination - you can move all the way up. Republican candidates for President in 2016 Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Dr. Carson all came from poor families. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz parents were immigrants with Cuban heritage. 

Since I have no intention of returning to the United States and I now think of the Philippines as my home I will have to accept the cultural differences, but that does not mean I have to adopt them.

 

Do politicians really care about the sick and elderly?

Why does U.S. law require perfectly good medicine that could be given to the poor and elderly be destroyed?

In the eighties and early nineties a group of us violated the law and risk being arrested picking up the medication of people who died of A.I.D.S. and passing it on to those living with A.I.D.S. who could not afford medication. We would have someone stay at the home when we knew the patient was about to die and secure the medicine before public health care workers arrived.

Public health care workers, nursing homes and hospices must destroy medicines of deceased patients according to U.S. law. Nursing homes, public health care workers, and hospices must also destroy unused medicine when doctors prescribe a new medication or stop a medication. Some medications can be sent back to the pharmacy if the facility has an in-house pharmacy, but most medicines (hundreds of pounds daily) are destroyed.

In my opinion this profits no one but the pharmaceutical companies. The government claim they are protecting Americans from outdated medication or possible errors in distribution. Ask someone who cannot afford to purchase their medications because of insurance co-pays or do not have insurance if they would prefer the medicine to be destroyed or distributed by charitable organizations or selected pharmacy’s for free or a low cost. In a free society why don’t the people in need of these medications have a choice?  

There are people who have to choose each month whether they will buy medications or buy groceries. It is estimated 50 million people in the U.S. fail to fill needed prescriptions each year because of the cost.

Some with cardiovascular disease have said they take less medicine than prescribed due to cost and fifty percent of them were more likely to experience angina, strokes or non-fatal heart attacks. For many others, cutting back on medicine led to faster health declines, increased hospitalizations and premature death.

Even Medicare Part D medication is destroyed. Why can’t the government devise a program where the medication is returned to a government pharmacy (Veteran Administration) and be utilized. This would save millions of Medicare Part D funds yearly. Is this because the pharmaceutical companies do not want such programs developed?

Injectable drugs in syringes packed in tamper proof packaging are destroyed. I do not understand why medication in tamper proof packaging must be destroyed. It seems to me to be a total waste. The government claims they do not want these drugs to fall into the hands of the wrong people who may abuse them.

The D.E.A. destroyed 6400 pounds of medication picked up in one week in nursing homes and long care centers in two counties in the state of New York. Nationwide they collected and destroyed 742,497 pounds last year. This does not include medication facilities that were allowed to destroy unused medications in-house. I cannot even make an intelligent guess of what 742,497 pounds of prescription drugs would cost retail, but I am sure it would be in the billions of dollars.

There is a nonprofit organization called Sirum, which was founded by three young Stanford graduates who use the internet to try and match patient and medicine.  Their goal is to save lives by saving unused medications. They are using technology to bridge this gap between surplus and need. The medications are sent to selected clinics to be distributed. They charge 25% of the retail cost for the drugs they recycle.

Forty states have enacted laws authorizing the reuse of medication. The State of Iowa recycled $52 million in unused drugs to the poor last year. These programs are small and are State authorized and not authorized by the Federal government.  Change is coming, but it is slow because people fear recourse from the Federal government.  Few in the medical industry know about these small recycle programs and only about 25 medications are allowed to be recycled.

Previously sold, but unused medication, brought back to special pharmacies for resale or donation could provide a low-cost source for patent protected medicines. Pharmacies in Mexico and Canada are doing brisk business from Americans crossing the borders to buy medicine. Internet pharmacies are also doing a brisk business in the United States selling both reimported American made medications and low-cost foreign-made products. Which do you think is safer foreign made medications without government regulations or recycled American medications with government regulations that are perfectly good? 

Other countries have opted for pharmaceutical price controls and/or curtailing patent protection, but such actions run counter to American free-market ideology and political realities. Plus lobbyist are too strong in the United States to ever allow this to happen. 

Leftover drugs prescribed for American patients with HIV are now being recycled for use overseas. 'Aid for AIDS in Manhattan' — a nonprofit group with branches in Italy, Spain and Switzerland collects drugs after US patients with HIV switch prescriptions, stop medications, or die. The group passes these very expensive retroviral medicines along to more than 500 people with HIV throughout Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. American law makes it illegal to redistribute these medications to the poor in the United States, but says nothing about exporting them. If these drugs are not safe for Americans to take then why is our government allowing people in Third World Countries to take them?

Nursing homes and other healthcare facilities are not the only possible sources of recyclable medicines. A more important source may be medication in consumers' homes that is unused. As I said earlier we collected thousands of dollars of medications in homes. 

“Expired medication” also represents a potentially large source of supply of medicine for a recycling program. As things stand now, expiration dates get a lot of emphasis. For instance, there is a campaign, cosponsored by some drug retailers, that urges people to discard tablets or capsules when they reach the date on the label. It turns out that the date on the label is often much earlier than the official expiration date. Pharmaceutical companies admit most drugs would be okay to use 18 to 24 months after the expiration date.  Very expensive medications are being dumped, being wasted.

Obviously, much discussion and planning is needed before medicine recycling could become a reality on a large scale for example new laws, regulations about what might be recycled, individual pill packaging for the selected items, rules about who might be eligible to return medication, who might be able to purchase it, rules for exchanging the old pills for a new prescription and how to pay for the infrastructure support.

It might be wise to concentrate at first on recycling from nursing homes and other facilities where there is an unbroken chain of accountability for the medicine. Such medication has never been out of the hands of accountable healthcare workers, and there is a clear trail of when it was purchased for whom and why it was not used. Recycled medicine would have to be individually packaged or still in its sealed original container.

Federal law could be changed. Individual tablet and capsule tamper-resistant packaging, including bar code identification of manufacturer, date of manufacture, expiration date, medication name, and dosage would bring us close to the possibility of recycling appropriately chosen medications. Such a system, combined with appropriate safeguards to assure product authenticity, is worth discussing.

We will never know if any plan for medicine recycling can be safely done unless we begin the discussion. This means we would have to overcome the greed of pharmaceutical corporations and retailers of medication.