Tuesday, April 29, 2008 VSMMC findings out this week
THE Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas will release within the week its findings on the scandal at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC).
Assistant Ombudsman Virginia Santiago, in an interview yesterday, said the associate investigator assigned to the case was already on the final stages of the report last week.
The findings would have been out already but the complainant submitted a supplemental affidavit last Friday, claiming P6 million in damages.
Santiago also said Health Secretary Francisco Duque III has stepped into the issue with an administrative investigation of his own.
“We want to coordinate with the Department of Health and determine who will handle the administrative investigation. We want to avoid a duplication,” she said.
Limit
Santiago said the anti-graft office is limiting itself on the issue of whether the doctors involved in the surgery acted inappropriately.
The anti-graft office, owing to the confidential nature of fact-finding investigations, did not reveal the names of the doctors they are investigating.
However, Duque already named them - Dr. Philips Leo Arias, head surgeon; Dr. Angelo Aliwanagan, assistant surgeon; Dr. Max Joseph Montecillo, surgeon; Rosemarie Villareal, nursing attendant; and Carmina Sapi, circulating nurse - before reporters in Manila.
The VSMMC management, through chief Dr. Gerardo Aquino, has already ordered Arias and the other members of the medical team to submit their comments under oath.
At the anti-graft office, an order to submit a reply or counter-affidavit is issued only after an adverse finding has been established.
The doctors and nurses were identified in an April 16 fact-finding report submitted to Duque.
Video
It showed how a canister of body spray had been stuck up the rectum of the patient and how a non-invasive procedure had been successfully performed to remove it.
However, the fact-finding report also showed how the procedure was videotaped without the patient’s consent. Much worse, the file got uploaded to YouTube, a video-sharing site.
The video showed several medical workers shouting, laughing and jeering, and some were caught taking footage using their cell phones.
Santiago, in an interview yesterday, said they have a copy of everything, including the hospital’s investigation report and an official copy of the video they have kept in a secure location.
“We will include the findings of the hospital in our fact-finding report, as well as the allegations contained in the complainant’s sworn and supplemental affidavits,” she said. (KNR)
