Where does the money come from to operate the Hospital Information network?

OrphanCrow

The recent buzz that has hit the online communities concerning the Watchtower Society and their evil offspring - the JW org - revolves around their apparent financial difficulties. Many factors have been discussed - the real estate flips (and flops), the changes in meetings and field service, the need for donations to cover expenses, the push for donations. Donations to presumably cover the cost of "worldwide preaching work", Jehovah's construction plans, translation offices...
There is one part of the Watchtower Society that is never discussed when it comes to financial outlays and expense of the WTS. And, this unmentioned "arm" of the WTS octopus is a substantial one and one that would require a substantial investment to keep operating. And, this arm keeps operating and is very active. That arm is the WTS' Hospital International Information Services. This operation is a complex and and weighty part of the WTS' concerns.
The HIS oversees branches in almost every country they operate in and their function is to train and maintain teams of JW men who we know as the Hospital Liasion Comittees, the HLC. And to maintain connections with the pharmaceutical and medical world. This network of people are governed by a quasi-medical people who are JWs. The WTS maintains a huge medical library that is "everything you ever wanted to know about blood" and up until recently, they produced copius amounts of promotional propagnada for the so-called "bloodless" field of medicine. They continue to produce and distribute their "blood management" propaganda throughout medical establishments across the globe. The entire network is very complex and exerts a worldwide influence. And it would take a lot of money to keep it operational - the investments into training, producing all the promontional material, and maintaining a medical library would be substantial.
My question is this - where does the money come from to keep this monster quasi-medical organization afloat - the Hospital International Information Services? Does the WTS ever solicit donations for the financing of the HLC network? The WTS asks for donations to literature and Kingdom Hall concerns, and world wide missionary work, etc, etc. but is the HLC ever mentioned?
Does anyone have any information on how the funding (which would be substantial) for the Hospital Information network is handled? Who pays for that "service"? Does anybody even care? Does anyone besides me ever wonder about how the WTS' medical arm is financed? Or how much it costs to keep it going? Where does the money come from to operate the hospital information network?

Landy

There isn't a 'medical arm'. The HLC's are just a bunch of elders who are able to talk to doctors about the possibility of alternative treatments. That's it. They aren't paid for anything - the costs of dissemination of any information to them will be negligible.

nonjwspouse

Landy, have you read/researched back into Crow's past postings with copious amounts of links , bot net address links and WTBTS links to this influential "arm".

Maybe when you try to look into this your posing afterwards would be a bit different.

Mephis

In Britain, the Hospital Services is run out of IBSA House. Can't find anything charitable registered (or mentioned in hospital policy documents which deal with them) which seems linked, so assume that it's run as a department of the monolithic whole.

Landy

Landy, have you read/researched back into Crow's past postings with copious amounts of links , bot net address links and WTBTS links to this influential "arm".
Maybe when you try to look into this your posing afterwards would be a bit different.

Admittedly no, it may well be different now. When I was in, the HLC was just a few local elders who'd done a bit of boning up on blood substitutes.

OrphanCrow

Landy: The HLC's are just a bunch of elders who are able to talk to doctors about the possibility of alternative treatments. That's it. They aren't paid for anything - the costs of dissemination of any information to them will be negligible.

Landy, the HLC is only the visible part of the entire medical network that is necessary for the WTS to disseminate the information that the HLC is responsible for. To get an idea of who the HLC is, think of an baptized publisher in the field service hierarchy. That is where the HLC member is situated. Above the "unbaptized" ones - the elders who implement the blood policies at the mundane but essential level - with the targeted group of medical subjects - the JWs themselves.

Above the HLC guys is an entire medical network who establish protocol and organize liaisons with medical establishments and pharma companies. Rising up through the ranks of the HLC network could land, and has landed, the really slick ones into prominent international positions in the field of blood management. (Shannon Farmer, for one. There are many more) Each country has a branch of Hospital Information Services, most of them run by JW doctors.

Not only that, but the amount of material produced over the past seven decades by the WTS concerning blood and how to influence the medical world with their version of treatment, has been very substantial and comes from the maintenance of a large, large medical library. The cost of researching, producing and distributing some of their historical "medical information" in the form of hefty volumes and visual media would be large.

I do not think that the cost is 'negligible'. Far from it. Far, far from it.

OrphanCrow

Landy: When I was in, the HLC was just a few local elders who'd done a bit of boning up on blood substitutes.

For some background information about how high up that "boning up" goes in the HLC:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/287365/blood-us-army-us-navy-watchtower-society

The local handling of the blood substitutes by elders was just the pimple on a big festering boil.

Vidiot

OrphanCrow - "Where does the money come from to operate the Hospital Information network?"

Given what you yourself have discovered, the source is probably the WT's somewhat-less-than-six-degrees-seperated "bloodless" med-tech industry itself.

x

BTW...

OrphanCrow - "...real estate flips (and flops)..."

Made my day.

OrphanCrow

Vidiot: the WT's somewhat-less-than-six-degrees-seperated "bloodless" med-tech industry itself.

Are you suggesting....*gasp*...that the WTS gets money from the same bloodless industry that would profit from leaving the blood doctrine in place? Wouldn't that create some ethical issues? Conflict of interest?

How does the Hospital Information Services claim to be "charitable" and "for the public good" when it obviously serves the interests of only JWs and those invested in those concerns? Or...does it only serve the JWs? Who profits from being donators to the Hospital Information network?

BTW...

:) *happy Sunday morning!

JWdaughter

My mom got an hour or so with an end who was hired by hospital as regular employee and who led mum through a loooong session involving a blood agreement, mum chose from a lot of options after being totally led by JW hospital employee to which option were acceptable.

Catholic hospital, paid by Medicare and group health.

Where does the money come from to operate the Hospital Information network?

Share this