Our medical future

I would like to extend my thanks to the team of professionals at UPMC Presby for the care they gave my mother after her femur and partial hip replacement surgery. I would like to especially thank her surgeon Dr. Ivan Tarkin for his remarkable expertise and bedside manner. If it were not for this surgeon and my mother's health care, she would not be walking today.

My mother is 84 years old and partially blind. The night before her surgery, I thanked God that she had the health-care plan that she had, in order for her to have the procedure she needed. If there were a government-sponsored universal health plan, would they have fixed my mother's leg as quickly as they did or would she be walking today?

Our health-care system is the best in the world. It may need some work, but it does not need to be replaced.

Remember we will all be old one day. Is this the plan we want for our future?

JOANNE TEGETHOFF
McCandless