I wanted to concentrate on writing my entry to this year’s Palanca Awards but I just couldn’t. So I’m using this entry as a lame excuse to vent my frustrations on my self-imposed writer’s block.
You’re an alien if you haven’t heard anything about the Canister Scandal at the Vicente Sotto Medical Center in Cebu. The doctors and the nurses involved in that operation can only be described as idiots, a**holes and mindless dogs who know nothing about genuine care for their patients. And the hospital is harboring these creeps. Last I heard, the 3 doctors and 2 nurses who were responsible are retained in the hospital because they are short of medical staff. I mean, is that even a reason? That’s just bullsh*t.
It’s numb skulls like them who give our health system an even stinkier image. After the leakage in the 2006 Nursing Boards and that remark from Desperate Housewives, what more could these brilliant retards do to further ruin and discredit medical practice in the country? For wannabe MDs like me, the future seems dotted with too much distrust and malice that frankly, anyone would think twice if they would proceed or not.
Earning someone’s trust is hard but losing it is as easy as uploading a video of a delicate operation on YouTube for all the world to see. It’s sub-human inconsiderations like this that make the world a darn awful place to live in. And what makes it worse is that the people who are supposed to be educated and smart are the ones who make it hell on earth (e.g. Politicians).
You see a doctor and you envision someone who would pull you from the brink of death and give you a new leash on life. You see a nurse and you envision someone who would take care of you while you lay on a hospital bed, drifting heavily on meds and with a sore body. Now, you see people in white and you get a hell of a scare. You see doctors and nurses and you think Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
It may not be that too big of a deal for others but it is an issue of trust and responsibility that we must address. This irresponsible and backward thinking is just disgusting and is so unbecoming of a professional. You see a helpless individual and you make fun of him and take a video of him and prize that as something of an accomplishment? That’s absurd! And it’s not just the 3 doctors and 2 nurses who should be charged but the hospital as well. What sort of hospital allows that kind of treatment to their patients? I’ve only seen bits and pieces of the video on T.V. Patrol and to be honest, I do not have the heart to see the entire clip on YouTube because I would be more enraged with the medical staff. They were said to have ridiculed the patient while he was on the operating table. Goodness me, even the student nurses were let in to view the operation. Worse, they took pictures of him with their handy-dandy cellphones INSIDE the OR. Madness, really or sheer stupidity and inconsideration.
For me, its events such as this that make my resolve to become an MD even stronger. Call me an idealist or a wide-eyed dreamer or whatever, but to clean the image of health workers or medical practice in the country will be my life-long mission. And it would not just be me but the entire community as well, working together to improve the current sordid state that it is in right now and to dispell it’s bad reputation. Its time for true compassion and sincere concern to reign over asinine thoughts.
Charge the medical staff in the PRC and in the Ombudsman and let’s hope and pray they get what they deserve. Investigate the hospital too. Actually, all the hospitals in the country if possible to make sure they follow the guidelines.
13 Comments
April 25, 2008 at 5:01 pm
thank you for visiting my site. im glad that you’re resolve to become a doctor is getting stronger. and if you will become one, im pretty sure that it will broaden you’re mind on this particular issue. its better if you have seen the video because you will see that no patient’s face was seen. you can’t even see his anus. thank you for the space.
April 25, 2008 at 5:05 pm
[...] read the rest here. [...]
April 26, 2008 at 1:58 am
wow, palanca, way to go sister! more power to you!
a writer’s block is just a canister on your….
just have it removed at cebu, just don’t go on youtube, nakakahiya…
di ba?
April 26, 2008 at 2:13 am
you know, i’ve always thought of cebu as a land of outgoingness. look at their exclusive schools, the girls are open… game… maybe even the sisters. even when a male fetishist or voyeur goes to the girlie bars, unlike in manila bars where the girls are all frowning, in cebu they’re all smiling and glad to be on the stage for all the world to see.
it’s an attitude that in the street you might call masayang buyangyang, a happy exhibitionsm (?) if you like. particularly in urbane cebu city, cebu people are kind, warmhearted and never harsh on others. the canister incident is way beyond imagination but it was a bad slip. a really, really bad slip. those doctors and nurses wanted fun but ended up making hell for themselves now.
you could forget the incident, but you also could not. there’s a perversity involved somewhere but in all, it boils down to the cebu mentality of an inviting, tempting hospitality and extreme openness to the point of vulgarity. i love the cebuanos, i love cebu even if i am not from that place. everywhere they have a counterpart, perhaps a town or two, a city or two in a region, a country. but i might not ever be able to trade the love i have felt for the people there for any other place else in the world. that is why, in my heart of hearts, i always keep coming back to cebu. it’s buried inside my chest and all that jazz about the canister is really sick but specially if you’re a filipino, it shouldn’t diminish the humaneness and worldly mien of the place and its people.
it’s really just sad about having people stuck with objects in their behinds and raising hell about the consequences. reminds of the lady who put so many corncobs there and keeps crying out that her cancerous behind should inspire Filipinos more to oust gloria. shit!
April 26, 2008 at 1:43 pm
The physician-patient relationship is centered on absolute trust: that the doctor will do everything for the benefit of the patient. This incident is a clear violation of that trust.
April 26, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I hope the victims sue for damages and that the perps get theirs.
BTW, the answer to your Korn question is at my blog’s tagboard.
April 27, 2008 at 4:57 am
dr. tes:
but even if the face of the patient wasn’t shown, thats still a viloation of confidentiality between doctor and patient.
johanns:
thanks!
girbaudz:
i dont think i could do a palanca this year though. last year i submitted an entry but this year i cant. havent even finished anything yet haha.
sir martin:
i agree, yes. mga bastos.
thanks for visiting!
April 28, 2008 at 11:46 am
The incident makes me wonder if truly indeed the cream of the medical crop left this nation for good, or at least for the meantime. Which goes without saying that we are left, or this nation has to sustain, with the spoils of the day, or days, or years even.
But come to think of it, I do hope would-be-doctors (like you) would find this incident among many others silenced by the forgetfulness of human memory compelling reasons to stay and, more importantly, to serve the people in the truest sense of the phrase.
April 28, 2008 at 1:13 pm
niña:
invoke the faeries, encantos, makiling diwatas, all the anitos and laman lupas, kapres, even the wakwak, asuwang, manananggal, sigbin, santelmo, etcetera, etcetera and i don’t know how you will not lose that mental colony err… block.
good luck to you anyhow. master your command…
ako nga, i’ve been trying to finish stage 1 of thirty seven novels already. the first manuscript i finished i think got lost. perhaps that’s why the 37 is trying to make up or find that lost damned shit. hehehe, that was a joke.
more power to you!!!
spliceanddice:
May 8, 2008 at 3:13 am
Hi Nina
Just dropping by to say hello and to wish you great luck for the Palanca Award…
Anna
May 8, 2008 at 3:15 am
I guess I’m an alien — truly didn’t hear about the scandal until I accessed your blog. (But now I know so perhaps I’m now just half an alien… Heh!)
May 11, 2008 at 7:24 am
it’s unethical and absurd!
September 23, 2008 at 2:12 am
Stupidity is a choice. If you choose to be stupid, you will be.
Where do you study? In the Metropolis?Bicol colleges? Visayan universities?
Come to think of it, it does not matter where you had your education. What matters is how you use the wisdom.
Or I should say: “Are you using it?”