NZ teacher in hospital. What would you do?

[Colorado]

What would you do if you were struck by a serious illness while teaching in Korea? You are suddenly hospitalized and unable to work? You discover that your Korean National Insurance doesn’t cover your kind of major illness and you are most probably going to die here in a foreign land?
My next door neighbor, a 47-year-old Native English Teacher from New Zealand, is in the ICU right now at Busan University Hospital in Yangsan with liver failure.  He is on the list for a liver transplant and the doctors say that he will not survive without one. He has a rare blood type, O negative. His brother is now en route from New Zealand and is a potential donor, assuming that $50,000 can be found for the operation. 
What would you do?

11/23 UPDATE!

Donations may now be made through Paypal to the account of Mick.Milne@gmail.com

----

If you are sending funds from within Korea:
Nonghyup Bank (National Agricultural Cooperative Federation)
Name: 마이클 (Michael Milne)
Account - 811057 52 067773

... If you are sending funds from another country to Mick's Korean account:
Bank name: National Agricultural Cooperative Federation
Name: Michael Milne
Account number: 811057 52 067773
Swift Code - NACFKRSEXXX
Address: 75, Chungjeongro 1 Ga
Jung-Gu, Seoul, Korea
Phone: 82-10-7552-1964

[Colorado]

The operation, I'm told, is fairly non-invasive for the donor.  His liver will regenerate.

[kiwikimchi]

WTF? insurance won't cover it?
Why have health insurance if it is basically worthless ? It might give us cheap doctors visits etc but when we really need it like this poor guy does, it won't do jack.

Really feel foor him and his family.

[Colorado]

Korean National Health Insurance is pretty good for most things, but if you get cancer or need a transplant, you've got a problem.

[Colorado]

Facebook page went up today:

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/event.php?eid=202032269874081

[AC_in_Korea]

The original poster, Colorado, as well as the gentleman in the hospital, are my friends.  There are 17 foreign teachers that live in this small city, and we are trying as hard as we can to raise some money to help the family out.
We are all donating our time, our money, and any resources we can to help our friend survive.    We could really use your help, of all kinds.  Your good thoughts, your prayers, your support when we have fundraising events, and yes, your donations.

[zerobigideas]

I also teach in this town, Miryang. 

Mick is a good dude and I think you can all imagine the horror of facing death in a Korean hospital.  I don't know all the exact details of what his situation is, but I do know the main thing is finding a donor with O-negative blood.  Anyone with O negative blood should consider letting us know, as I'm sure a reward could be arranged.  I'm not sure exactly how the procedure works, but I've been told it isn't at all dangerous to the donor.  Might be a good way to make some money and save a life.  How many of us can say they've unequivocally saved a life.

Think about it.

Kyle

[Colorado]

Thanks for the backup, Miryang people.

Actually, his brother is the best chance for a donor matchup. I'm headed to the airport in a couple of hours to pick him up and we'll swing by the hospital.  What we need are funds.  We are told that the cost will be between 40 and 50 million won.  We're working on some fundraisers and will keep you posted.

[lotte world]

Why has my message been deleted?

What would happen to a Korean in this situation?  Foreigners enrolled with Korean NHIC will be treated the same, so what does a Korea do in this situation?  They cannot ask for a brother to be sent from overseas.

[Colorado]

If you are sending funds from within Korea:
Nonghyup Bank (National Agricultural Cooperative Federation)
Name: 마이클 (Michael Milne)
Account - 811057 52 067773

... If you are sending funds from another country to Mick's Korean account:
Bank name: National Agricultural Cooperative Federation
Name: Michael Milne
Account number: 811057 52 067773
Swift Code - NACFKRSEXXX
Address: 75, Chungjeongro 1 Ga
Jung-Gu, Seoul, Korea
Phone: 82-10-7552-1964

[Colorado]

Lotte,  I saw that your post was deleted so I deleted my response. I don't know why yours was deleted. I thought you deleted it.

I imagine that most Koreans would not need to have a brother flown in from overseas, but if they needed to, I bet they would, don't you think?

[Colorado]

yes, that is his name. I understand that people need to be cautious.  But I also can't help thinking that if everyone who viewed this post gave 50 bucks, we could save a person's life. 
and I'm realistic enough to realize that's not going to happen.

[SuwonROKs]

I do not do facebook, can you post the pertinent information here please.

WTF? insurance won't cover it?
Why have health insurance if it is basically worthless ? It might give us cheap doctors visits etc but when we really need it like this poor guy does, it won't do jack.

No matter where you go things like cancers or transplants cost a lot of money. Here we only pay about 60,000 won a month for coverage while in the west for greater coverage you are paying double or triple and more.

That's the downside of the national health insurance and why most Koreans and myself go through a private company.  It's great for small things but really sucks for big things like this. 

I once heard, though, that a liver transplant in the US is something like $90,000.  If this happened to me I'd consider myself lucky to have it done in Korea.  Hope he pulls through.  This must be torture for him and his loved ones right now.

[AC_in_Korea]

Why has my message been deleted?

What would happen to a Korean in this situation?  Foreigners enrolled with Korean NHIC will be treated the same, so what does a Korea do in this situation?  They cannot ask for a brother to be sent from overseas.

Lotte world, I believe if a Korean was in this same situation, they would reach out to the communities that they belong to, be it their town, city, Church groups, etc, and ask for help.  This is exactly what we are doing.

We are not berating the health care system, nor the cost of the transplants.  We are simply trying to reach out to the communities we are part of in Korea, and ask for help.

Please help us.

Is Michael Milne the patient's name? You are talking to people who do not know you, him or the miryang crowd so people may be cautious.

Thank you Archeologist - you are right. 

Michael Milne is our friend's name. He is from New Zealand, and has been teaching here in Miryang for five years.  I have been in Miryang for two years now, and have been a faithful member of Waygook.org for almost the same time.
I know we all need to be careful in instances like these, and I appreciate your caution. 

If you are able to donate, PLEASE post it here, or on the facebook event page, and I will personally see to it, that we keep you updated with the situation, and how the money is used.

Thank you, for whatever you can do.

[AC_in_Korea]

Let's stay on the important topic here.

I understand you are trying to get a warning out Smaug, and I understand your response Seoulian - however I am going to kindly ask you to take these important opinions to a new thread, since neither one relates directly to what we are desperately trying to do - save our friend's life.

Once again, your opinions do matter - they just need to be expressed in the right spot, which is not here.

I appreciate your interest in reading the post though, and hope that you can, at the very least, keep our friend in your good thoughts.

[Arsalan]

Hey guys,

I'm really sorry to hear about your friend's condition, and would like to help.  It would have been good to start this thread with a quick e-mail to me first, as I would have stickied it and put it in the news section so it shows up at the very top of each page.  I'll go ahead and do that now.

Lastly, I tried sending through online banking, but I'm having trouble.   I'll drop by a branch on Friday and send something, but is there a way to do this through paypal?  If we can get 500 people to send about 100$, and the transplant goes well, then we should all be happy to have taken part in something good.

Slightly idealist?  Well, people need to help each other out in the type of world we live in, that's not being naive or idealistic.  I'll ask that any posts made here not derail the topic or be rude, otherwise it's an immediate and permanent ban, no exceptions.

[Jokiwi]

Thanks Arsalan for adding this as a sticky.

I'm a former Miryang teacher and even those of us who have done our tour of duty in Korea and are back in our home countries are going to do everything we can to help Mick.

A big ups to the teachers in Miryang. It's a small city and it is good to see the tradition of taking care of each other live on. We need the foreigner community at large to get in behind this cause. Donate if you can, fundraise, offer your prayers and also help spread the word. Feel free to pass on ideas of what we can do to help Mick and his wife. 

[Colorado]

Thanks Arsalan and Jokiwi.  How does one go about setting up a paypal account?  Can you email that information to me?

[archaeologist]

Seems like the word is out and hopefully enough people will respond with donations. How did he contract this illness?

[jackdaniels]

Is Michael Milne the patient's name? You are talking to people who do not know you, him or the miryang crowd so people may be cautious.

It's fact; everything has been confirmed.