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Tuesday, April 29, 2003
Fear of Sars bugs burial of patient
CEBU -- Stigma and fear of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) caused funeral homes to refuse to embalm or cremate the government employee who died last Sunday.
Health officials in Cebu lamented that false information about Sars and the health condition of the 64-year-old Bureau of Immigration officer have caused panic among the public, particularly employees of funeral parlors.
RL (name withheld to protect his family) was buried at the Calamba Catholic cemetery around 3 p.m. Monday. The burial, attended by some family members who came from Manila and three health officers, lasted for only about 15 minutes.
Up to the time of RL's burial, local health officials continued to reiterate that the immigration officer assigned at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport did not die of Sars.
Dr. Junjie Zuasula, regional epidemiologist of the Department of Health (DOH) 7, said there has been a massive "outbreak of hysteria" in Cebu as the public continues to spread and believe false information about Sars.
He said employees of the funeral homes seem to have been misinformed on the health condition of the patient prior to his death.
Cebu City Sars crisis manager Lito Osmeņa shares Zuasuala's view, saying ignorance is the reason people are panicking over Sars.
Zuasula appealed to the media Monday to help them disseminate correction information about Sars. He also asked the public to trust the information released by the health department, like in the real cause of RL's death.
RL succumbed to severe pneumonia, diabetes, acute myocardial infarction or heart attack and advanced stage of pulmonary tuberculosis at 1:30 a.m. last Sunday.
Never a suspect
Zuasula stressed that RL could not possibly die of the Sars virus since he was not a Sars suspect at all.
"How can you be a Sars case when you were never really a Sars suspect? We ruled him in initially but we found out that he never had a history of travel to an infected country or had direct unprotected contact with a suspected case," he told reporters.
However, the Lapu-Lapu City Government will organize an epidemiological team that will locate and interview all persons who had been in direct contact with RL.
And even if the DOH 7 said RL did not die of Sars, it still asked the Lapu-Lapu City Health Office to locate RL's lone companion in the house and put him on quarantine.
City Councilor Mario Amores, who is a doctor and chairman of the committee on health, said that to be safe, it is necessary to locate all persons associated with the patient to monitor them.
One of RL's attending physicians at the North General Hospital (NGH) is also said to be suffering from fever, but Zuasula said he is not suffering from Sars.
The female doctor had severe sore throat and was already feverish even before RL was admitted at NGH last Wednesday.
The doctor also did not have a history of travel to an infected country or contact with a suspected Sars patient.
Refused
Wrapped in a body bag, RL's body was first brought to a funeral parlor in Mandaue City last Sunday morning, but he was not admitted there after its employees found out that he was a suspected Sars case, said Jose Dilao Jr., liaison officer of St. Peter's Funeral Homes.
The body was then taken to St. Peter past 1 p.m. last Sunday where it was placed in a metal casket and sealed in plastic until family members picked it up yesterday morning.
His family flew in from Malabon in Manila after his condition worsened last Saturday.
An embalmer at St. Peter said that his superiors accepted RL because they did not know of his condition prior to his death.
RL's family decided to have him cremated but Benevola Memorial Garden in Consolacion, Cebu also refused to accept him because of reports that he was a suspected Sars case, Dilao told reporters Monday.
"When I called them again to explain that RL did not die of Sars and that a certification for embalming and cremation has already been signed by the City Health Office, they told me that their crematorium operator is no longer available," Dilao said in Cebuano.
Distraught
Employees of St. Peter Funeral Homes were heard arguing why RL's body was accepted for embalming when he was reported to have been a "rule-in" suspect of Sars.
They also complained that media reports that they admitted RL turned off possible clients Monday.
When they arrived at St. Peter Monday morning, RL's wife and daughter were distraught to see that their loved one still hasn't been embalmed 36 hours after he died of severe pneumonia and heart attack at the NGH last Sunday dawn.
"We are confused because the government has not given any assistance. No funeral home accepted us. We don't even have money for the burial. We are strangers here," RL's daughter said Monday.
Only a few people attended RL's burial, including three health officers, said the head caretaker of the Calamba cemetery, Alfeo Glova.
Glova said the Cebu City health officers arrived ahead of the hearse carrying RL's sealed coffin.
Upon their arrival around 3 p.m., they immediately ordered the burial.
Much as they want to just bring the body to Manila, RL's family lamented that airline companies and shipping lines also wouldn't accept the body of RL since it wasn't embalmed.
Zuasula urged funeral parlor employees not to panic amid the Sars scare, since Cebu still does not have a Sars case as of Monday night.
Specimen and blood samples taken from RL will be sent to Manila for confirmatory testing, if only to convince the public that he did not die of Sars.
As of Monday night, DOH 7 and hotline 161 of the Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation do not have a record of any other admission in public and private hospitals for Sars evaluation and reports of patient suffering from symptoms of the disease. LCR/ROV/With MBG, Sun.Star Cebu
(April 29, 2003 issue)
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