INDEED, the Bagong Ospital ng Maynila is world-class, inside out.
When I attended its inauguration last June 24, I was impressed from the façade all the way to the facilities inside and the different kinds of services that will be offered there for free.
The inauguration of the said hospital was attended by then Mayor, now ‘Citizen Isko’, along with newly-inaugurated Mayor Honey Lacuna and Vice Mayor Yul Servo. They were joined by Manila Health Department chief Dr. Arnold ‘Poks’ Pangan, city engineer Armand Andres, city electrician Randy Sadac and Sta. Ana Hospital Director Dr. Grace Padilla.
With the said hospital, Moreno has said that the residents of Manila now need no longer go to expensive, private hospitals to seek treatment since they now have the Bagong Ospital ng Maynila providing free services that are at par with high-end hospitals. He also said assured barangay chairmen, teachers and employees that they may be accommodated at the said hospital where special suites have been allotted for them in case they get sick.
The new ten-storey hospital, apart from being fully-airconditioned, boasts of features like embedded, piped-in oxygen; electric- operated beds, an MRI machine, infant warmer, anethesia machine, digital mammogram, portable x-ray, cath lab, bronchoscop, endoscopy, laparoscopy, 4d ultrasound, digital x-ray, cloroscopy and a CDT scan machine, among others.
From the event, I joined old friends for dinner at a nearby hotel and there, we got to meet a dozen of barangay chairmen from the fifth district who also attended the said event.
I was surprised by their stories of disappointment about the one sitting at the helm of OM, a certain Dr. Laqui. According to them, they bring their patients to as far as the Sta. Ana Hospital, citing the lack of humane considerations for patients they bring to OM.
They said that while applauding the speech of the mayor, they were thinking of how to make their complaints reach him, certain that he was not aware of how grossly inefficient the current hospital administration is.
Oh, well. I did not blurt it out but I have one myself. An editor’s nephew was brought to OM after his right eye got hit by a nail.
He was brought to a hospital that estimated the charges at P100,000 minimum and since they had no money, they rushed to the OM, specially since they were told that if the damaged eye will not be operated ASAP, the good eye may be lost too.
The following day, the editor called me up crying, ‘mahirap talaga maging mahirap.’ I learned that his nephew had been at the said hospital overnight without being attended to.
Since he had no Philhealth, the nephew was reportedly told to get an RT-PCR test outside and then come back with the result before he can get any treatment.
I called a contact for help since the nephew was at risk of losing both eyes. I said that Mayor Isko had been announcing that RT-PCR tests are free in the city-run hospitals, even for non-Manilans and just for mere peace of mind.
The contact, in fairness, acted swiftly and when still, nothing happened as per the editor, I had to report to the contact again.
To my surprise, Laqui texted me and sort of admonished why I had to report to the contact. I bluntly told him that I would not have done so if any action was taken after our talk. Apparently, he expected me to do nothing while he, too, did nothing about the boy who was about to go blind.
These all came back to me when I heard the complaints of the chairmen themselves. They are so relatable.
Indeed, no matter how sophisticated the facilities of a hospital are, it all boils down to the people handling the services.
In the case of public hospitals, I believe it is a must that those assigned to head them must have a heart for the sick and a genuine concern for the poor.
I don’t think this Laqui fits the bill.
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