PHO denies mom forced to leave 2 kids
NO GUARANTEE DEMANDED FOR PAYMENT
LINGAYEN—“That is not true.”
This was the assertion of the assistant provincial health officer, flatly denying the report that two children were left as guarantee to pay P5,000 in unpaid hospital bills by a patient who had to be transferred to another hospital due to congestive heart failure.
Dr. Jeremy Agerico Rosario denied the rumored incident during the budget hearing of provincial government-owned and operated hospitals last week.
“It’s so shameful that we have to ask a patient to leave her children as guarantee to ensure she would pay her hospital bills,” Rosario said. “Never, and we will not allow that a guarantee, more so, children of a patient, would be left by force in a hospital, to make sure the patient returns to pay,” he said.
He said an initial investigation about the rumor involving a patient named Elizabeth Gumapos of this town, suffering from congestive heart disease with asthma, initially confined at the Lingayen District Hospital (LDH) and transferred to the Pangasinan Provincial Hospital (PPH) in San Carlos City, showed it did not happen.
“Our government hospital is about serving the people than earning revenues,” he said.
Meanwhile, Provincial health officer, Dr. Ana De Guzman, said, as a policy children below 13 years old and below are prohibited in the hospitals.” The LDH with a 50-bed capacity is catering to over 100 patients, and may no longer be able to look after children who are not even sick,” she added.
Sixth District Board Member Board Member Alfonso Bince Jr. had threatened that “heads will roll and the hospital head will be held liable, if true.”
He said they will conduct an administrative investigation and relatives of a patient who died will become the complainants.
Rosario said a relative of the patient who works at the LDH is willing to testify that the “guarantee issue” never happened.
Bince had proposed that to ensure that hospital staffs are properly advised in handling administrative cases, a guidebook on ethical standards of hospital personnel be prepared.
Rosario said the suggestion is “very laudable” and welcomes the idea.
Rosario said that when the patient was transferred to the PPH, she was already suffering from advanced cardiac problem, congestive heart class 4 and could not breathe. The patient died after two days. (Tita Roces/Johanne Macob)
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