Poor patient turned down by gov’t hospital
by Ramon Tulfo, Philippine Daily Inquirer
ROSALIA Villones, 38, was taken to the Rizal Provincial Hospital in Morong town experiencing labor pains at 9 p.m. of January 4. Her husband, Oscar, 40, a farmer, and daughters Maureen and Rose Ann were with her. Rosalia and Oscar were expecting their fourth child.
Doctors at the provincial government-run hospital didn’t accept Rosalia, saying the hospital didn’t have the facilities to treat her for complications that might arise from child birth.
Rosalia was having an asthma attack and was diagnosed with pneumonia. The doctors at the hospital told Oscar to take his wife to the Rizal Medical Center (RMC) in Pasig City, about one and a half hours away. The hospital has two ambulances but doctors didn’t see it fit for Rosalia, who was wearing tattered clothes, to be brought to another hospital in an ambulance.
So poor Oscar took his wife to the RMC on a jeepney that he hired. When they reached the RMC, they were told Rosalia could not be accommodated as the hospital’s delivery room was being renovated. So, Oscar took Rosalia back to the Rizal Provincial Hospital.
Again, the hospital rejected Rosalia for the same reason: It didn’t have the facilities to treat her for her asthma attack and pneumonia. Rosalia gave birth at her nipa hut at the foot of a mountain in Cardona, Rizal province.
She died an hour later, or seven hours after she was first taken to the Rizal Provincial Hospital.
Complete article here.
