R1MC responds to FB posts of angry mom
FILE a complaint with the hospital, don’t just bring out your grievances on social media.
This is the advice of Dr. Roland Joseph Mejia, chief of Region 1 Medical Center (R1MC) here to the parents of a one-year-old baby who died in the hospital after four days of confinement.
On June 23, Jiana Zarate, the victim’s mother, expressed her anguish and anger on Facebook over what happened to her child and her posts instantly went viral with more than 36,000 shares and more than 43,000 reactions as of June 30.
In a Bombo Radyo Dagupan interview, Mejia said the right thing to do is to file a complaint with the hospital “so that a specific committee that will handle it can act based on the protocol of handling complaints by the Department of Health”.
Nonetheless, he said even without the official complaint, he already created a fact-finding committee to handle the Zarate case.
Mejia said the departed patient, Cristal Jhade Zarate, had intussusception, a medical condition in which a part of the intestine folds into the section next to it.
On Mrs. Zarate’s claim that only interns looked into the condition of her child, Mejia said, “That’s her allegation but based on the protocol of R1MC, even if you ask the Association of Philippine Medical Colleges that handles interns, interns are not allowed to handle patients. Actually interns now do not go on duty unlike during our time when we go on duty 24 hours. But now, it’s only purely observation.”
Zarate asked why her baby was operated on although the doctors reportedly knew her condition was unstable; what the result of the surgical operation done on the baby was, what the cause and symptoms were of baby’s ailment.
“My baby is human, not an animal,” an irate mom Jiana said.
Mejia assured an impartial investigation even as he assured the parents of the dead baby that there would be no whitewash on the probe being made.
“If there were lapses or shortcomings on the part of the doctors, we would sanction them.,” he said.
The fact-finding committee will invite the Zarate couple for a more extensive discussion of their concerns, Mejia said. (Tita Roces)
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