PPE racket of hospitals, clinics

By Ermin Garcia Jr.

 

WHY have a number of hospitals and clinics in Pangasinan started charging their patients the costs of PPEs used by their medical staff? This charge is without legal basis, unfair to patients and clearly a business malpractice.

My friend Rex Catubig recently reacted to my post on Facebook last week about reports that private hospitals and clinics in many hospitals in the country have been charging their patients the costs of PPEs that their medical staff use when attending to patients.

Apparently, he was put through the same experience recently when he went to a clinic in Dagupan for a simple blood test. He was charged P100 (less SC 20% discount)! He was naturally aghast!

RexC posted ”When I questioned the charge, the supervisor said matter of factly, ‘it’s for my safety, that the staff have these PPEs for every client served. Big lie – the phlebotomist who did the extraction only changed her gloves. This is big time rip-off by these so-called sanctuaries of care.”  Indeed.

This charge cannot ever be justified because there is no direct benefit to the patient but to the staff, and therefore, these costs should be to the accounts of the hospital/clinic owners. It’s the responsibility of hospital owners/clinics, not patients, to protect their staff. It’s utterly unconscionable on the part of hospital owners, managers to use the safety of their frontliners as an opportunity for profit.

For the hospitals/clinics to legally and fairly justify the charge, patients, at the very least, must be asked if they are willing to be attended to by a nurse or doctor wearing a PPE for which there will be a corresponding charge of (P100?) for it.

In the case of RexC, patients were being charged the same costs for a single PPE used by medical staff all day long in attending to patients who come for consultation.

But for the hospital/clinics to arbitrarily charge patients costs meant to protect the medical staff without prior advice to patient, is not only unethical but criminally akin to extortion. “Pay up, we won’t take care of you next time.”

What happened to compassion for patients? Is it now only about opportunities for money that can be exacted from anyone desperate to be healed?

I invite the DTI and NBI to look into this business malpractice. If not corrected, what will stop the hospitals and clinics from charging patients for the medical staff’s meals, laundry of medical uniforms, supplements, etc ?

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POSO FACES CHARGE OF ILLEGAL CITATION. A number of tricycles in Dagupan City have been issued permits to resume their operations in the city, That’s the good news!

Now, the bad news. Tricycles are over-charging passengers, the fare for two at the very least, all because the IATF guideline for General Community Quarantine requires only one passenger!  (Note: Tricycles in Dagupan are in fact, designed for one passenger only) Who’s regulating this? It’s not that the tricycles deserve some consideration but there must be an ordinance that will enforce it, not whimsically. 

In such a case, commuters in Dagupan should have taxis that hold LFTRB franchises, whose rates are regulated by meters as alternative transport. But I’ve been told that the taxis in the city are suspending their operations lately because the taxis have been harassed and penalized no end by POSO enforcers. Reason? “Violation of police order “(?) but POSO enforcers cannot invoke the specific ordinance, not even a written order from the Dagupan police chief P/Lt. Col. Abubakar Mangelen Jr., assuming the order is legal.

Why the endless harassment? To please Mayor Brian Lim because the reported majority owner of the taxi company is former Mayor Belen Fernandez?

POSO chief Rob Erfe-Mejia would be well advised to order to put a stop to the harassment lest he and his enforcers are charged for illegal citations and graft. 

The pleasure that his office gives the mayor will not be worth the embarrassment and suffering the consequence of being charged in court for a criminal offense. 

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LUCKY KAPITANS. Is it possible that all the barangay kapitans in Pangasinan dutifully managed and distributed all cash and food aid to their constituents as scheduled?

Other provinces reported anomalies in the barangay level from doubled payments, doubled food aid to political allies while depriving political enemies of their mayors and these were confirmed by complaints filed with the Department of Interior and Local Government.

Still there were the barangay kapitan who surreptitiously misrepresented themselves to qualify for cash aid. (In Pangasinan, a kapitan in Mangaldan was listed as a farmer to qualify for relief from the Department of Agriculture sent barangay residents wondering how that was made possible). In such a case, duplication of names may be difficult to determine.

In Dagupan City, howls of protests were heard in some barangays where only allies of the city administration were given priority to receive different food package apart from what “ordinary” residents. Fortunately, for these kapitans who played favorites, no official complaints have been filed against them, at least to my knowledge.

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