No room at the hospital
The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is overwhelming health facilities around the world. This does not diminish the tragedy that befell the family of Jan Christian Bulatao, whose wife Catherine died for lack of a hospital where she could undergo surgery to remove the placenta left in her uterus after childbirth.
Assisted by a midwife, Catherine had given birth at her house in Caloocan City on April 24. The placenta, however, needed to be taken out, and the couple was forced to seek hospitalization.
The North Caloocan Doctors Hospital told them it did not have enough blood. The nearby Commonwealth Hospital and Medical Center said it lacked rooms because COVID-19 cases were confined in the facility. Bulatao then took his wife to the Far Eastern University Hospital in Fairview, Quezon City, which asked for a down payment of P30,000 that the couple clearly lacked.
From there, the couple returned to Caloocan, to the Bermudez Polymedic Hospital, which said it lacked the equipment for the surgery. Then it was on to San Jose del Monte in Bulacan, where both the Skyline Hospital and Medical Center and Grace General Hospital told Bulatao that they lacked obstetricians.
Finally, the couple found a hospital ready to accept Catherine: the San Jose del Monte General Hospital. But after several hours, Catherine had lost too much blood, and she was declared dead on arrival.
Catherine’s case was not unique. On April 9, 65-year-old Ladislao Cabling of Nueva Ecija also died of asthma after being turned away by six hospitals, whose administrators said they lacked intensive care units amid the pandemic.
Republic Act 8344 prohibits hospitals from refusing treatment to emergency cases. RA 10932, meanwhile, bars hospitals from demanding a deposit before accepting serious or emergency patients. These laws have been around for years, and hospital administrators are supposed to be aware of them.
The National Bureau of Investigation has reportedly launched a probe of Catherine’s death. It won’t bring her or Cabling back to life, but perhaps the results of the probe could prevent a repeat of their tragedy.