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Sunday, January 19, 2003
Denied help, 2 women give birth at sea
By Oscar C. Pineda
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
IT SEEMS giving birth aboard a tricycle and pumpboats is quite common in Olango Island.
Last Jan. 7 and late last year, three women delivered their babies while being transported to the hospital.
Narmil Barong, 18, had her baby in a tricycle after she was not admitted to the Olango District Hospital and was instead referred to another hospital in Cebu City.
Sun.Star visited Barong last Thursday to check on her and her baby. Her neighbors recalled that it was not only Barong who was turned away by that hospital but two other women as well.
“It’s a hospital and yet it cannot serve us and referred us to other hospitals,” said Cornelia Soliano, 55, Barong’s mother-in-law.
The two mothers in Barangay Talima shared her view.
Cristita “Tita” Ompad, 39, gave birth while aboard the Lapu-Lapu City-owned pumpboat last Oct. 27, 2002. The Olango District Hospital refused to admit her because of her high blood pressure.
Her neighbor, Rosanna Ompad, 36, also gave birth aboard a pumpboat last Sept. 4, 2002. She, too, suffered from high blood pressure.
Olango is about 20 minutes by pumpboat from the interior Angasil port in Barangay Mactan, Lapu-Lapu City.
Sun.Star tried but failed to get comments from Dr. Rogelito Favio, director of the Olango District Hospital, because he left early that day. He was also not home when Sun.Star called up his residence.
Facilities
Hospital senior officials, however, said the facility lacks equipment to deal with abnormal conditions of mothers giving birth.
They also said these women don’t visit the hospital for a pre-natal checkup, which could have detected their abnormal conditions at an early stage.
Barong is already doing her regular house chores with baby, Eric Soliano Jr., in their hut in Barangay San Vicente. She said she and her baby need vitamins and other food supplements.
But Barong, whose common-law husband is a seasonal boatman, cannot afford to buy vitamins or even a P20 ride back and forth to their district hospital for pre-natal and post-natal checkups.
When she went to the hospital last Jan. 7, the medical staff told her that the baby will come out feet first and they considered it a risky delivery.
In the case of Ompad, the baby’s position was normal except that the mother’s blood pressure was high, 190 over 80.
Ompad arrived at the district hospital around 9 p.m. last Oct. 26 and two hours later, Dr. Manolo Fernandez referred her to Vicente Sotto Medical Center because of her blood pressure.
So, they went to Sta. Rosa port and waited for the operator of the City-owned pumpboat.
Born at sea
Equipped with radio communication, the boat crew contacted the Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation (ERUF) to meet them in Sitio Boot, Barangay Punta Engaño in Lapu-Lapu.
But the baby came out before they reached their destination.
Thankful for her safe delivery, Ompad named her baby Jose Vergel Ompad, after the pumpboat’s name Birhen sa Regla.
Ompad’s neighbor, Rosanna, also gave birth aboard a big pumpboat last Sept. 4. But her blood pressure of 210 over 110 prompted Dr. Favio to refer her to the Lapu-Lapu City District Hospital.
It was while crossing the sea to Mactan Island that she delivered her baby.
Olango District Hospital, the only medical establishment in the island, was established in December 1983. It has 10 beds, an emergency room and a delivery room and staffed by three doctors, three nurses and three attendants.
It is under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Health Office.
(January 19, 2003 issue)
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