DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 28 July) — Family members of five-year-old patient, Jebreil, who died at Davao Doctors Hospital (DDH) on July 17, demand acknowledgement of the lapses and sincere apology from the hospital management for the alleged mistreatment of his family by some of its personnel.
Jade Mark Capiñares, the eldest brother of the patient, said he and his family were deeply hurt at how they were treated during their time of grief.
“I know that by writing this I run the risk of being seen as trying to find someone to blame for the death of my little brother. I’m not. Far be it from me to question their medical expertise. But what I can’t accept is how their management seems to prioritize profit over people. I’m just angry at how Davao Doctors Hospital seems to have forgotten the very age-old medical oaths they are expected to uphold. We are grieving—but they failed to see it,” he said in a social media post on July 25.
He said his family is scheduled to meet with the hospital representatives on July 30, upon request of the management.
“As to the details of what we will talk about, wala pa sila gihatag na details (they did not give any details yet). They just want to meet us personally to talk about these matters,” he said.
Capiñares posted on July 25 a detailed account of the alleged mistreatment, narrating his struggles from the time they requested the transfer of his brother to the intensive care unit (ICU) to alleged overcharging and mishandling of his brother’s remains in the morgue.
As of Sunday, his post had over 34,000 reactions and 14,000 shares.
He said his family initially raised their concerns with the medical staff, particularly the nurses on the same day that his brother died, but were advised to go to the hospital’s “Patient Experience,” an office handling these concerns.
He said the hospital emailed the family last July 23, acknowledging receipt of their complaints, and vowed it would conduct an internal investigation of the incident.
Investigation
In a statement on July 26, the DDH said it was aware of the concerns circulating on social media and assured the public that it would take these matters seriously.
“Davao Doctors Hospital extends our deepest condolences to the family affected by the loss of their loved one. We share in their grief and sorrow during this immensely difficult time,” it said.
It said the hospital is in touch with the family and that the incident is urgently and thoroughly investigated.
“We will communicate our findings to the family privately. We appreciate your understanding during this sensitive time,” it added.
Based on the post of Capiñares, the family rushed the boy who was experiencing seizures, to the emergency room of DDH last July 17. Attending physicians administered medicines intravenously but the seizures continued so doctors recommended that he be transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
He claimed that instead of immediately processing their request for admission to the ICU, the hospital staff kept reminding him that it would cost his family P50,000 to P80,000 daily, excluding doctors’ fees.
He said that when the hospital staff was asked whether there were available rooms in the ICU, he recalled being told that they could not disclose the room’s availability unless the family would decide to have their patient admitted to the ICU.
“There was a long back and forth. They pressured me to decide right then and there, but still wouldn’t answer my question. If my brother needed the ICU, why were we having a conversation that always circled back to the cost? I ran to my other family members and asserted that our brother needed the ICU,” he said.
When his family decided to have his brother moved to ICU, Capiñares learned that there were, in fact, no vacant rooms in the ICU.
“Why had we gone through that stressful conversation earlier? To be honest it felt like the availability of their ICU depended not on the urgency of the situation but on our ability to pay,” he said.
He said his brother expired in the afternoon of July 17 due to “cardiopulmonary arrest” but the patient’s doctors believed that the patient had “encephalitis, either viral or autoimmune, based on his symptoms.”
Overcharged
Capiñares said that his family immediately processed the billing after the death of his brother but added that when they requested for an itemized invoice, they were surprised to learn that they were being charged for medical procedures that were not performed, particularly the MRI scan and X-Ray.
“Only after our cross-checking did they proactively review the bill and find one more item to remove themselves,” he said.
He said their medical bill decreased to P56,000 from P79,000.
“If my brother hadn’t asked for details, we would have been overcharged by around PHP 23,000. That’s a lot of money, which we needed. But based on how they handled the billing, who knows what else was there that needed reviewing and removing?” he said.
He said that the family could not transfer the remains of his brother to the funeral home as the medical certificate was not readily available, but when he returned to the hospital the following day, July 18, the hospital charged them additional fees for the preservation of his brother’s body.
“I wanted to argue that it was because they hadn’t given us the medical certificate, but I just wanted to take my brother’s body away from the hospital. I agreed to pay the fee. However, when the billing officer called the morgue, they told me they hadn’t preserved the body. Basically they were about to charge us for a service they didn’t provide,” he said.
He said the hospital left his brother’s remains unattended in the morgue.
“So you left my brother decomposing there? You are a medical facility. Isn’t it automatic to preserve dead bodies?” he asked.
He said the hospital should have called him.
“Although my brother was dead, the fact remained that he had once been a human being, a little kid at that. A little humanity would have been nice. But all they were concerned about was money, money, money. My little brother, when he was alive, liked to turn the AC (aircon) on the whole day. Thinking about him being left sweltering in the morgue broke my heart,” he said.
Capiñares told MindaNews that his family is considering taking legal action against the hospital.
“Karon naga-seek pa me og expert advice kung unsa gyud among dapat. Gina consider namo sya but dili conclusive na buhaton namo. We are still grieving man gud and gina hinay hinay pa namo og process tanan. (We are still seeking expert advice on what we should do. That is being considered but it is not yet conclusive whether we will pursue it. We are still grieving and we are slowly processing everything). We are considering all options,” he added. (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
0 Comments