The Thai surrogate mother of an abandoned Down’s syndrome twin says
SHE IS NOT ANGRY’ WITH THE AUSTRALIAN COUPLE FOR THEIR DECISION?
PATTARAMON CHANBUA, 21, POSES WITH HER CHILDREN GAME, 7, LEFT, AND BABY BOY GAMMY AT A HOSPITAL IN CHONBURI PROVINCE, SOUTH-EASTERN THAILAND.
The Thai surrogate mother has said that she is not angry with the Australian biological parents who left behind a baby boy born with Down’s syndrome.
She added that she hoped the family would take care of the boy’s twin sister they took with them.
GAMMY WAS SEPARATED FROM HIS HEALTHY TWIN SISTER
Pattaramon Chanbua, a 21-year-old food vendor in Thailand’s seaside town of Sri Racha, has had to take a break from her job to take care of her seven-month-old surrogate baby, named Gammy, who also has a congenital heart condition.
The boy, with blond hair and dark brown eyes, is now being treated in a hospital for infection in his lungs.
M/s Pattaramon said she met the Australian couple once when the babies were born and knew only that they lived in a Western Australia state.
“I’ve never felt angry at them or hated them. I’m always willing to forgive them,” M/s Pattaramon said, “I want to see that they love the baby girl as much as my family loves Gammy. I want her to be well taken care of.”
M/s Pattaramon was promised 300,000 baht (£5,500) by a surrogacy agency in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, to be a surrogate for the Australian couple, but she has not been fully paid since the children were born last December.
She said the agency knew about Gammy’s condition four to five months after she became pregnant but did not tell her. It was not until the seventh month of her pregnancy when the doctors and the agency told her that one of the twin babies had Down’s syndrome and suggested that she have an abortion just for him.
Ms Pattaramon recalled strongly rejecting the idea, believing that having the abortion would be sinful. “I asked them, ‘Are you still humans?’ I really wanted to know,” she said.
Her case highlights the rising problem of surrogacy in Thailand, where legal loopholes allow the practice to exist. Thai officials said last week that there were 50 surrogate babies of Israeli couples in Thailand who were not able to travel to Israel due to nationality issues.
“The Thai authorities are pushing for a law that will ban surrogacy of non-family members, but there is no punishment right now,” said Pavena Hongsakul, a former Thai social development and human security minister and advocate for women’s and children’s rights. “This is a worrying trend as it can lead to other problems, such as human trafficking.”
M/s Pavena said a surrogate mother is usually paid 300,000 to 350,000 baht (£5,500 to £6,500) to carry a baby for overseas couples who either have reproduction difficulties or are gay.
M/s Pattaramon, who also has a six-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter, said she approached the surrogacy agency on Facebook early last year because she wanted money to pay off debts. She said she plans to file a complaint with Thai police to get the rest of the unpaid compensation money from the agency.
Meanwhile, an online campaign by an Australian charity organization to help Gammy has raised nearly 200,000 US dollars (£119,000) since July 22.
“I’m going to save the money for him,” M/s Pattaramon said. “Actually, I just want the baby to have a house. It doesn’t have to be big. I only want him to live in a good house and be comfortable.” ‘Great values you have to say’.
Charity Group “Focus” blames Irish Government for the homeless situation
The Government is to blame for the rise in homelessness by its stubborn refusal to offer realistic rent supplements, the voluntary housing charity Focus has claimed.
Warning the Government, housing the charity group Focus Ireland yesterday revealed 39 families became homeless in Dublin last month. It also noted that, on average, one family lost their home in the Dublin area every day this year.
The figures were announced as Focus Ireland made a submission to the Department of Social Protection’s Review of Rent Supplement Levels.
The submission called for rent supplement payments to match real rent levels to help prevent families and individuals from losing their homes.
The charity’s submission also warns that the Government’s rent review process is fatally flawed and will not fix the problem.
Focus Ireland Director of Advocacy Mike Allen said: “Our figures for July show that 39 families — more than one family a day — lost their home and became homeless in Dublin last month alone. Many of these families lost their homes because the rent supplement system failed them.
“A lot of the families that are becoming homeless, and others we are supporting to try to prevent them losing their homes, have been forced to top up the rent supplement to meet the market cost of rent, as the rent supplement doesn’t cover the rent.
“Paying this top-up, month on month, is clearly not sustainable and it just pushes families deeper into debt and nearer to homelessness.”
Focus Ireland said the Government must raise rent supplement rates to stop the rise in the number of families losing their homes as they can not afford to pay their rent.
Mr Allen said: “The Government could stop many families from losing their homes with a stroke of a pen. It is not credible for the Government to accept homelessness is at crisis point yet not take this straightforward action to prevent it.”
Focus Ireland also warned that the Department of Social Protection review is fatally flawed and will end up perpetuating the problem unless a different approach is taken.
Mr Allen said: “We believe that this review should be trying to set a fair rent level based on real average rents in an area. But instead they have decided to base the rent levels on the cheapest third of the market.
“Many of these homes are already rented to people on low wages or students so the numbers just don’t add up. It is exactly this kind of wrongheaded policy that forces individuals and families to top-up and causes homelessness.”
The charity further warned if this approach is followed again, the current rent supplement review is doomed to fail many of the families and individuals who are currently homeless, as they will still not be able to find a home in the private rented market.
Its submission calls for the department to revise the way rent caps are decided and set them based on the real average rent for each area.
Mr Allen said: “We cannot escape from the fact that there are not enough homes to rent in the lowest third of the market for everyone who is seeking a home to secure a roof over their heads.
“The Government must open its eyes to this fact. They have a responsibility and a duty to do so to protect families and individuals who are being priced out of the market. It is not credible for the minister to come out and say tackling homelessness is a priority when the very mechanics and polices pursued by her Department on this issue is actually not only causing the problem to continue but actually to get worse.”
Focus Ireland welcomed the fact that the Government has initiated a process to review the maximum level of rent supplement which can be paid, but the situation was continuing to deteriorate while the review is taking place.
The housing charity called for the review to be completed promptly and the decision implemented on budget day. The charity said the Government also needs to bring in greater rent regulation.
See these brave duo divers remove a lodged hook from the mouth of an angry Shark
Most humans don’t realize that the threat we pose to sharks is much larger than any threat they might be to us.
Everyday sharks are accidentally caught in fishing lines, slaughtered for their fins, and targeted by governments who want to keep beaches as thriving tourist attractions.
Yet, because most people assume sharks are dangerous predators, there is very little attention given to the reality of their plight.
Nearly 100 million sharks disappear from the ocean every year, largely at the hands of humans. In this video, divers Cameron Nimmo and Randy Jordan save a shark that has a fishing hook caught on his mouth. This diving duo has devoted their lives to diving with sharks, and according to the video, out of the 10 to 20 of the sharks they encounter on a dive, nearly 75 percent have hooks somewhere in their bodies. Yikes.
Clearly, fishing hooks have become quite the epidemic for sharks, and Nimmo and Jordan hope to raise awareness to the threats facing sharks with this video. So, have a watch and share with all your shark-loving friends!
The use of Panadol effectiveness is now questioned
A new study shows that Paracetamol is not as effective for lower back pain than first thought.
Paracetamol, or panadol as commonly known, is a medicine found in many homes. Even when there is no patient in the house at a time, the medicine is kept for ‘just in case’ reasons.
It’s a reliever for a pool of pains including joint pains, back pain, headache and other illnesses. Panadol is available in tablet or liquid form and can be accessed without prescription from supermarkets, pharmacists, and many other shops.
Because of efficacy and limited occurrence of side effects with its use, paracetamol is globally recognised as the first set of medicine prescribed for treatment of most illnesses.
However, a recent study by Australian researchers has found the use of paracetamol to relieve lower back pain to be wanting. The study concluded that paracetamol is no more effective than a dummy pill a (placebo).
Results of the study indicated that there was no major difference found in terms of relieving pain levels, urgency of recovery and sleep between individuals who used the drug and those who used a placebo.
Associate Professor Christine Lin of the George Institute for Global Health at the University of Sydney tested more than 1,600 patients and found the median recovery time from lower back pain was 16-17 days whether patients used paracetamol or not.
The study, published in The Lancet, a medical journal on July 24, consisted of more than 1600 Australian patients with acute back pain being randomly assigned into three groups – one received three doses of paracetamol per day (6 tablets), one who could take the drug as needed (8 tablets), and one who was assigned a placebo.
The researcher found no difference in recovery times between the groups.
Dr. Adnan Khan, a physician, says that 80% of the active population suffers from low back pain at some point in their lives because of bending, twisting and heavy lifting that damage the disks in the back.
He said that pain can occur when, for example, someone lifts something too heavy or overstretches, causing a sprain or spasm in one of the muscles or ligaments in the back. For the aged, he says when bone strength, muscle elasticity and tone decrease, the discs begin to lose fluid and flexibility, which decreases their ability to cushion the vertebrae leading to pain.
“If the spine becomes overly strained or compressed, a disc may rupture or bulge outward. This rupture may put pressure on the nerves rooted to the spinal cord that control body movements and transmit signals from the body to the brain. When these nerve roots become irritated back pain results”, he explains.
The doctor says that most cases of low back pain do not require urgent care apart from pain killers and physical fitness exercises, but patients should seek medical attention immediately if they experience low back pain as a result of severe trauma, or if low back pain is accompanied by fever, sudden weight loss or sudden bladder incontinence or continuous abdominal pains.
He recommends that people should always seek medical attention in case of any pain for doctors to establish the cause since pain is the body’s way of telling you there is damage, injury or disease to tissues or organs- Normally when the cause of pain is removed, pain ceases.
But Dr. Khan advises patients not to abandon paracetamol basing on the study saying that though the medicine’s efficacy on back pain is doubted, it’s a well-tolerated remedy for headaches, fever, pain after an operation, dental pain among others although it can seriously damage your liver if you take it in amounts of over 8 tablets a day. Experts who were not directly involved in the study have cautioned that guidelines should nevertheless not be changed on the basis of a single piece of research.
2016 will be a big year in more ways than one
“BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR TAX BILLS”?
Taxation once again in Ireland 2016 is going to be significant for more than one, it’s not just the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising.
Towards the end of that year, householders are going to learn how their bills for two of the most contentious austerity measures of the bailout era will hit them the following year.
The valuation period for the property tax, based on how much the house was worth in May 2013, runs from 2013 up to 2016. Thereafter, from 2017 through to 2019, homeowners are supposed to pay their property tax based on the value of their house in November 2016.
However, the rise of the property market means homeowners are facing sizably bigger bills. The Central Statistics Office confirmed that June’s monthly increase of 2.9pc nationally was the highest since the property index began in 2005 so the concerns of homeowners about the impact on their property tax bills are obvious.
Ministers are listening and are weighing up whether to announce a property tax freeze in Budget 2015 as they want people to have “clarity” about what taxes are coming down the track. Finance Minister Michael Noonan and Public Spending Minister Brendan Howlin have already been talking about delaying the revaluation period until there is a “bedding down” of the market.
The lack of supply will continue to push prices up – but buyers face anything up to four more years of housing shortages with rising prices before enough homes are built to meet demand.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny says it will take two years for the Government’s policies to increase housing output to make an impact, but AIB chief executive David Duffy estimates the supply problem will remain for four years. The uncertainty over property taxes is creating anxiety, which can affect consumer sentiment.
The Labour Party is pushing for a freeze, with the revaluation in 2016 to be postponed – but Fine Gael is less certain it’s a good idea to signal such a move at this stage as it’s too far out to know where the market will be at.
On water charges, there is also a lack of clarity around future bills. The charging regime currently being finalised will run until the end of 2016 – but there is no guarantee water charges won’t increase after 2016. Of course, a general election is due in early 2016, assuming the Coalition lasts its full term.
The Government wants the voters to be focused on tax reductions, not fixated on hikes in existing taxes. Expect property taxes and water charges to feature prominently in the campaign.
A Pet dog survives a 90 metre plunge from Clare cliff’s into the Atlantic
EMERGENCY SERVICES COME TO RESCUE OF ‘VIMES’ AT LOOKOUT POINT IN CO CLARE
Vimes a pet dog survived a 300 ft. plunge on to a cliff in Co Clare.
A much-loved pet dog has survived a plunge into the Atlantic from a 91-metre (300ft) cliff in Co Clare.
The alarm was raised at about 3.30pm on Sunday when a member of the public rang the emergency services to report that a dog had gone over the edge at Lookout Point, Dunlicky near Kilkee.
It’s understood that the dog, a family pet named Vimes, got away from his owners and and got too close to the cliff edge.
The dog lost his footing and plunged 300 feet into the sea below and was lucky to have avoided the cliff face on the way down and rocks at the base of the cliff.
The Irish Coast Guard marine rescue sub centre at Valentia Island in Co Kerry was alerted an in turn requested the the Kilkee unit of the service to mobilise.
The volunteer service quickly launched its rescue boat for what was its 10th callout in a week.
Rescuers raced to the scene in an effort to locate the animal but were unable to find him immediately. They then discovered that the hardy animal had managed to make it ashore at the base of the cliff.
Coast Guard personnel set about devising a plan to recover the dog to safely reach and rescue Vimes.
About an hour after the alarm was raised the dog was taken on board the rescue boat and taken back the slipway at Kilkee where he was reunited with his owners apparently uninjured.
A Coast Guard spokesman said: “We got a report that a dog had fallen from the cliff at Look Out Point which is around 300 feet or more high.
“We launched our boat a went to the scene to investigate. We searched for the dog and found that he had made it ashore at the base of the cliff.”
“We made a plan to recover the dog and did so successfully. The dog didn’t appear to be hurt but was happy to see us. We brought him back to our base in Kilkee and reunited him with his owners,” the spokesman added.
Vimes, whose owners are currently on honeymoon, later tweeted an image of himself in his bed, saying: “Taking it easy now! Me when I’m not adventuring and causing a small maritime crisis.”
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