Tuesday, May 20, 2008 Speak out: Suspension By Ang ladlad
ANG Ladlad, the national organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Filipinos, welcome the suspension by the Department of Health of two doctors and one nurse involved in the rectal surgery scandal at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC).
Department of Health 7 Director Susana Madarieta imposed a three-month preventive suspension against the medical practitioners.
This is only the beginning of the end for these callous and inhuman doctors and nurses who turned the operating room of the hospital into a circus. They not only stripped Danilo/Janjan of his human dignity, but also stained the Philippine medical profession, which has already been besieged by a series of scandals.
Ladlad, however, also wants the nursing student who uploaded the video in YouTube barred by the Professional Regulations
Commission (PRC) from taking the nursing licensure examinations.
He or she has no right to practice the profession of nursing, which is a caring profession. Moreover, the PRC should also look into the revocation of the licenses of the doctors concerned. We also wonder why only three people were suspended when the Central Visayas Ombudsman fact-finding investigation found out that seven doctors and five nurses must face administrative charges. They should all be suspended to give a lesson to all that we should not discriminate based on sexual orientation and class in society.
The counsel for the suspended doctors are appealing the Ombudsman decision, saying that this deprives Cebu of medical service.
It does. But do we really want to be served by people whose reputations have been stained by this scandal? How can we even expect competent and professional medical care from people like this?
