Sunday, April 27, 2008 Rep. Ruiz says: Don't strip doctors, nurses of license
REP. Nerissa Soon-Ruiz (Cebu, 6th district) frowns at the idea of revoking the licenses of the doctors and nurses who figured in the controversial case involving a gay patient at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.
There were also suggestions to fire them from the hospital.
The medical team became controversial after the recorded operation they did on the patient landed on YouTube. The operation was done to pull out a spray canister from the patient’s rectum.
What made the video even more controversial was that it showed the doctors and nurses making fun of the patient.
Unusual
Ruiz, who is also a doctor, told Sun.Star Superbalita that she didn’t like how the medical team acted during the operation, as shown in the video. But she believes Dr. Phillips Leo Arias, who led the operation, was not among those who made fun of the patient.
“It couldn’t be the surgeons who were mocking the patient because their mouths were covered. They were concentrating on the operation,” she said in Bisaya.
She said the case was unusual, so it’s not surprising that other doctors wanted to watch the procedure.
Their only mistake was that they acted like they were misbehaving, she said. She said Arias is a good doctor.
She said that if the members of the medical team will be given punishment, the punishment must be commensurate to their lapses. Revoking their licenses and firing them from the hospital are too much, she said.
“We should even be happy that these doctors decided to stay in the country and serve here,” she said.
Ruiz said she has no plans of joining any investigation on the case because there are already so many officials looking into the matter.
She said she will just wait for the results of the investigations so she can help look for ways of how the law can deal with doctors who are found to commit lapses in their profession. (DRT of Sun.Star Superbalita)
