The Maholian Way - Part Two: The Maholian Way in the lives of two

Nine months later, after a lot more planning and preparation, the Tree Frog Café opened. The name evoked the challenging of stereotypes: you don’t usually think about frogs climbing trees, but they can certainly do it. Tracey was the paid manager (working school hours), and eight young people with mild intellectual disabilities, including Samantha, got jobs there for about twenty hours a week each. Two other non-disabled supervisors covered times when Tracey wasn’t working, and the business was overseen by the Tree Frog Cooperative, of which the young workers’ parents were the members. The café was located in the new Virginia Springs mini-hub, and catered to staff and customers of shops and other businesses being set up in the hub, and to bus travellers. Café hours were limited at first, allowing the staff to learn how to make sandwiches, work the espresso machine, serve the customers and handle the money. But they soon caught on, and before long the place was buzzing. The young staff were paid at a slightly lower than average rate, reflecting their (independently assessed) slightly lower productivity, but they retained part of their disability benefit. The business received ongoing advice from Alderby LEED, the community bank and their mentor, a businesswoman who at one stage had run a café herself. Samantha and her young co-workers loved their new jobs. There was much cheerful banter and conversation between them, and between staff and customers as well. And they clearly relished the process of mastering new skills and being acknowledged for them.

Things started to change for George as well. To begin with, it didn’t look good. He had a medical check-up that revealed a list of problems: the obesity, snoring, and back and knee problems that he already knew about; but also high blood pressure, high cholesterol and the early stages of diabetes that he didn’t. His doctor’s report, with recommendations, was duly sent to George’s health coordinator within the health organisation he belonged to. This person’s job was to help George put into place the practical steps he needed to take in order to become healthy and stay healthy. Working together they began to plan these steps, but George didn’t realise the radical changes that would eventually flow from this process.

All Maholians belong to a health organisation of their choice. These are mainly non-profit bodies associated with particular regions, industries, unions or other affiliations people had, but some are for-profit organisations, and there’s one government one. Health care is free for everyone, but it’s managed by these organisations, and they receive an annual payment from the government for each member on their books. In return they arrange and pay for health care that’s provided by hospitals, clinics and a wide range of other providers. These payments from government to the health organisation increase as members get older, and amounts are added for any significant pre-existing medical conditions. But once this is established, the payment is the same irrespective of how sick a person is, the health care they receive, or the cost of this to the health organisation. Organisations can’t afford to give members bad service, because they’ll simply leave and join another organisation, so naturally organisations have an interest in keeping people as healthy as possible and thereby saving on treatment costs.

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