Monday, April 21, 2008 Nalzaro: Medical team should be identified By Bobby Nalzaro Saksi
WHY is the administration of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) refusing to divulge the identities of the medical team that extracted a spray canister from the anus of a homosexual? Is there a cover-up? While we appreciate its conduct of an in-house investigation on the controversial issue, the investigation report was half-baked and did not satisfy the public and the media.
The report did not even contain specific details on why the incident happened, although the committee did come up with recommendations. I saw the footage of the surgery and I doubt there were only four people—three doctors and a nurse—inside the operating room. If that were true, then who took the video?
Don’t tell me that one of the doctors documented the whole process. I noticed that there were several persons documenting the operation with their cellular phones and video camera. I saw several gloved hands touch the homosexual’s anus when the canister was about to be extracted. When the object was pulled out, they clapped and shouted, “The baby is out.”
So who were those other persons inside the operating room? Why did the doctors and supervisors allow them to enter the operating room and allow them to bring in items that were not sterilized? For me, there is nothing wrong with documenting an operation, especially if the medical case is quite unique and it has something to do with medical and technology breakthrough.
In last Saturday’s issue of Sun.Star Cebu, it carried a file photo of a kidney transplant operation during a presentation at Cebu Doctors’ University Hospital. I remember that during the actual operation, it was beamed here via satellite, allowing some medical practitioners and mediamen to view it.
But what made this case at the VSMMC very controversial, catching the attention of medical associations and health officials, was that the operating team made fun of the patient. Worst, they circulated the video footage of the operation and uploaded it YouTube, where people all over the world could watch it.
The medical practitioners involved should voluntarily come out in the open and explain their side of the brouhaha. Why should their superiors protect them? Let them talk and explain. What happened could not even be considered medical malpractice. It was a simple behavioral lapse borne out of curiosity and overexcitement. Their violation, if there is any, has something to do with professional ethics and the violation of doctor/patient rule of confidentiality.
In fairness to the medical team, the operation was successful. When we talk of medical malpractice, it pertains to wrong diagnosis, dispensation of wrong medication or actual lapse in surgery that leads to the death or paralysis of a patient. The forceps that was left behind inside the abdomen of a patient after an operation was a clear case of medical malpractice. That was more serious than this recent controversy at the VSMMC.
But you see the culprit in the forceps incident, a former congressman, was never charged. And he continues to be a doctor. He even volunteered to operate on the patient to extract the forceps. What was he thinking, a back-job?
With the overwhelming support he got from various sectors, the patient in the VSMMC controversy should pursue his case against the members of the medical team. It is his right to seek damages, and he should not compromise his principle with financial consideration and apology. We should teach these physicians a lesson. But let this case also be a lesson against engaging in one-night stands and having sex with strangers.
