Hospital Earth

## Description

Appointed by "Hospital Earth Appointments Subcommittee" of Parliament of Planets

## Appearances

### Books:

* Hestia 2781
* Array 2781
* Sol 2781
* Earth Girl
* Earth Star
* Earth Flight

## Planetary Administration Division

Hospital Earth is the governing body of Earth. It is made up of a board of normal humans that are picked and paid by the Parliament of Planets.

Earth is in the physical center of Alpha Sector but is not politically part of any sector so is not subject to any sector laws.

Makes all of the laws for the planet and citizens in a "benevolent" dictatorship, where the citizens have absolutely no vote or say.

All handicapped are wards of Hospital Earth and subject to their complete control, until they reach adulthood. Once adults they only have moderately more freedom.

### Board of Directors

A list of potential board Directors is submitted by the "Hospital Earth Appointments Subcommittee" to Parliament of Planets for approval. The board then votes on which ones will be offered the empty seat. The board usually selects one of the children of the out going board member or one of their own children, thus resulting in a hereditary board.

The board members salary is paid by the Parliament of Planets, from the funds collection from all of the planets to support the immune syndrome children. The actual annual salary is very low as it is public information, but the board members receive a huge year-end bonus paid based on a very limited criteria including low child abuse and infant mortality numbers. The year-end bonuses are not public information.

Throughout their tenure, there have been many instances of board members abusing their position for personal gain.

“In the past, there were scandals about wards of Hospital Earth being bought outright or rented by off-worlders for unpleasant purposes.”

Babies bought or Rented
There were scandals about wards being bought or rented by off-worlders for unpleasant purposes. Parliament of Planets made changes to criteria for the board's year-end bonuses to include a set of child welfare issues, a lot of things stopped happening. Still, every so often some off-worlder gets the idea that there is a step within the process when the baby ceases to exist and so they attempt to bribe a Fourth Sister to sell them the baby. But there are severe checks and balances that there is at no time when a baby ceases to exist. When a Fourth Sister notifies their security that an off-worlder attempted to bribe them, the board is furious and would have him arrested even if they had to track him through his portal accesses.
Blackmail
In the distant pass, one board member used their position to find out which wealth and / or famous people around Humanities space had given birth to a child with Immune syndrome and then abandoned the baby. That board member would then blackmail them to keep the information private.
When the blackmail scheme was discovered, it resulted in the anonymization process being put into place. The security on the computers that hold the cross-identification process is very strong, thus preventing hacking and data mining.
Illegal Portal
In 2781 Military Security discovered an illegal portal on Earth being ran by one of Hospital Earth's board members, Weslen Mitchall. Weslen is the son of Storban Mitchall the head of the Board of Directors. Storban denied all knowledge of the portal and Weslen felt that he was betrayed so told military security everything, including how Storban bribed members of the "Hospital Earth Appointments Subcommittee" of Parliament of Planets to approve other relatives and friends for the board and they all shared in the profits of the illegal portal.
The final resolution was that Storban as well as several other members of the board were fired and several members from the "Hospital Earth Appointments Subcommittee" were dismissed.
All of those people were questioned by military security in regard to allegations of bribery and corruption.
Test Subjects
Any off-world research that wanted to use a batch of children as test subjects, just had to get approval from the Board of directors and probably pay a fee. Once approved children were routinely used as test subjects.
After the events of 2789 when Hospital Earth lost control of the entire planet and Earth became a member of Alpha Sector with representation in Parliament of Planets, the Aadi of Alpha Sector informed the Military of her concerns about the past actions of Hospital Earth, but felt that the new representatives of Earth should be the ones to guide the investigation.
## Medical

When a baby is born with Immune Syndrome on another planet, they are immediately portalled to a Earth via a preempt and the baby is received at one of the *Infant Crash units* that Hospital Earth runs.

The babies that arrive from the frontier worlds, Epsilon and Kappa, often arrive in critical condition where just one second delay can result in the death of the baby.

## Wards

Hospital Earth insists that all children with immune syndrome that are turned over to them to care for become their wards and that their norm parents can have no contact with them, until the child initiates it at age 14 or older.

They had discovered in the early days that the norm parents could really mess up the child psychological by continuously changing their mind, first dumping them, then moving to Earth to care for them, only to turn around and dump them again. In some respects that continues to happen when they are older too.

As in Issette's mother when Issette first contacted her, her mother wanted to stay in contact and come and visit her, only to change her mind and refused all contact.

### Education

Hospital Earth runs three different education streams for the children with immune syndrome.

All higher education is free for those with immune syndrome, not just at University Earth. If they wish to attend the university Earth, they are guaranteed a place is the course of their choice. They are also guaranteed a job of their choice after graduation.

### Anonymization

Once a baby is made a Ward of Hospital Earth it goes through anonymization process. Once a baby goes through this process there is no way to retrieve the original information on the child until they receive their CODE at age 14 and they request their own birth information. The anonymization process is handled by people with the job title of a Fourth Sister of Fate.

Hospital Earth is protective of babies during the anonymization process. It’s carried out at one of a set of secure locations, each of which has portal access secured to the genetic codes of three of the sisters. One for the day shift, one for the evening shift, and one for the night shift. There are also independent checks to confirm every baby collected is safely delivered to a Hospital Earth Nursery.

After years of attempting to hack into Hospital Earth's genealogy computer to retrieve Jarra's new name, in 2781 Gemelle Tell Feren with the help of Jaxon Tell Galad and Drago Tell Dramis made a startling discovery. Somehow Hospital Earth managed to use Thaddeus Ignatius Wallam-Crane Earth Euorpe's Time Vault as their secure genealogy computer.

## ProParents

Each of the handicapped babies are assigned a ProMum and a ProDad, this is a life long relationship. ProParents are expected to spend 2 hours a week with each of their proChildren. They usually have up to 10 proChildren. They are paid by Hospital Earth and there are requirements to be eligible for consideration to be a proParent.

Prerequisites:

* Must have experienced at least one serious relationship
* have at least one child of their own

## Child Care

Child care is the largest concern since hundreds of newborn babies arrive into their system every day and there are never enough adults to care for them.

Their fees to attend University are paid for by Hospital Earth and if they decide to do nothing with their lives then are granted a small living allowance.

### Group Homes

The handicapped children transition through a series of group homes until they are 18 and allowed to leave and live on their own.

Groups of children are kept together through out stages of development, in the hopes that they create bonds with each as siblings and family.

The three steps are Nursery (ages 0 - ?, Home (ages ? to 11) and Next step (ages 12 - 18).

### Psychologists

Each child is assigned a psychologists that they are expected to have weekly seasons with until they are 18. During their seasons the emphases is placed on the child accepting that they are handicapped and must always live on Earth. Emphasis is also placed on dealing with the parental abandonment issues and helping the children to learn to accept their birth parents decision..

Their main function though is to reinforce the view that "Hospital Earth" is their benevolent guardian.

## Inspectors

Investigate a variety of different problems from school truancy to child abuse allegations. Some situations are actually investigated, but some are just rushed through and any immune syndrome child involved is sent to corrections regardless if they are innocent or guilty. Child abuse cases are investigated, but more that they are guilty unless proven innocent.

## See also

* Illegal Portal
* Fourth Sister of Fate
* Novak-Nadal Syndrome
* Earth/Inhabitants
* **Hospital Earth**
* Hospital Earth Group Homes
* Education Earth
* University Earth

## References

### Citations

1. ↑ Edwards, Janet. Earth Flight (Earth Girl) (p. 116). Prometheus Books. Kindle Edition.
2. ↑ Edwards, Janet. Array 2781 (Drago Tell Dramis Book 3) (p. 9). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition.
3. ↑ Edwards, Janet. Earth Girl (Earth Girl series Book 1) (p. 186). Kindle Edition.
4. ↑ Edwards, Janet, The Fourth Sister of Fate
5. ↑ Edwards, Janet. Earth and Fire: An Earth Girl Novella (EGN Book 1) (p. 143). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition.

### Bibliography

* Earth 2788: The Earth Girl Short Stories (2015)
* Earth and Fire: An Earth Girl Novella (EGN Book 1) (2015)
* Earth and Air: An Earth Girl Novella (EGN Book 2) (2018)
* Earth Girl (Earth Girl series Book 1) (2015)
* Earth Star (Earth Girl series Book 2) (2014)
* Earth Flight (Earth Girl) (2015)
* Earth Prime (2020)
* Array 2781 (Drago Tell Dramis Book 3) (2021)
* Sol 2781 (Drago Tell Dramis Book 4) (2022)