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Tuesday, April 22, 2008
DOH 7 says Manila has final say on issue; Jan-jan submits affidavit
CEBU CITY -- Even after its fact-finding committee submitted a report Monday morning to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, the Department of Health (DOH) 7 declined to release the names of the doctors and nurses involved in the controversial operation for the removal of a spray canister from the rectum of a homosexual patient.
Arroyo Watch: Sun.Star blog on President Arroyo
DOH 7 Director Susana Madarieta and the committee’s chairperson Dr. Elaine Teleron said it will be the DOH Central Office that will have the final say on the matter.
“The ball is in their hands now. Rest assured we won’t be covering this up. I want to assure the public that in our best capability, this incident won’t happen again in any facility in Central Visayas,” said Madarieta.
“If Secretary Duque is not satisfied with our report, they can summon the persons concerned or send a team here to further look into the matter,” added Teleron.
In yesterday’s ABS-CBN media forum at Ayala Center Cebu, Madarieta called on Jan-Jan, the public and other medical practitioners to be patient and to wait.
“Names of the people involved in the video will be made known eventually. We still have to wait. In a short while, it will come. We have to follow due process of the law because it will be unfair to name them while there are still other groups that are contemplating to investigate,” she said.
The Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas’ fact-finding investigation on the “infamous Black Suede scandal” involving some doctors, nurses and interns at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) has formally begun.
Jan-Jan, the 39-year-old complainant who felt humiliated when videos of his operation were seen on YouTube, submitted Monday a nine-page affidavit asking the anti- graft office to step into the case.
Affidavit
The affidavit, subscribed and sworn to before Assistant Ombudsman Virginia Santiago, did not name the doctors, nurses and interns he wishes to charge. It only gave reference to a certain Dr. Arias.
Jan-Jan attached two hospital documents to the affidavit prepared by lawyer Guiller Ceniza. These were a clinical form and a discharge sheet showing the procedure he underwent.
Ceniza, in a previous interview, said the attachment will prove that his client is the same person shown on YouTube having a can of body spray removed from his rectum in the presence of about 10 visibly amused medical practitioners.
The video identified the spray by the brand name Black Suede. It was inserted by Jan-Jan’s male sex partner on New Year’s Eve.
Results
In a separate interview, Santiago also said they now have a copy of the results of the fact-finding investigation conducted by the hospital.
She said it is not the same document the hospital administration gave to the media after a press conference.
She refused to release the document despite Ceniza’s request, explaining that all documents obtained during an Ombudsman fact-finding investigation are deemed confidential.
Instead, she hoped that the media gradually lay off Jan-jan’s case now that it has formally reached the Ombudsman-Visayas.
“The complainant wants to go back to his regular life. He cannot do that if the media keeps on following him around,” she said in Cebuano.
Privacy
Jan-Jan, in his affidavit, cited how the incident violated his rights to privacy and confidentiality and reflected poorly on the sense of professionalism those responsible were supposed to have.
He cited provisions of Republic Act 4224, otherwise known as the Code of Ethics of the Medical Profession in the Philippines, the Code of Ethics for Registered Nurses the Hippocratic Oath and even the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials.
“I strongly believe the doctors and nurses of the Vicente (Sotto) Memorial Medical Center and the hospital itself violated my right to privacy and confidentiality.... Without my consent, they took videos of the operation showing my private parts and my unusual and embarrassing condition,” he said.
“Instead of observing professional courtesy and giving sympathy to a victim of sexual abuse, the doctors, the nurses and the hospital entertained themselves at my expense, by making fun at my condition; they jeered, laughed, shouted, uttered mischievous statements and cheered on many occasions during the operation; evidently, they were trying to mock and ridicule me,” he added.
Although, VSMMC and the DOH 7 already submitted reports on the incidents, DOH 7’s Madarieta said there is no hearing and proper investigation yet. What they did was merely a “preliminary fact-finding.”
While the report DOH came up with is not “so different” from that of the VSMMC’s, Madarieta said they focused on the behavior of the team that was shown in the video, and not so much on the patient.
“The patient at that time was sedated. We were not looking for his or her identity. But we have to do something with the behavior of the medical team involved,” she said.
They emailed a copy of their report as well as that of VSMMC’s to Duque on Monday. Madarieta also planned to hand-carry a copy of the video footage the committee studied to the health secretary during her official trip to Manila today.
Bureaucracy
Dave Tumulak, speaking in behalf of Jan-Jan, appreciated the review done by DOH 7 on VSMMC’s report. But he is wondering if government bureaucracy is not causing the delay in the disclosure of the results of DOH’s report.
He said the victim is pleading concerned agencies to hasten the investigation. He said they already sent Monday a letter to VSMMC chief Dr. Gerardo Aquino to release within 24 hours Jan-Jan’s surgery records that the patient earlier paid for.
If his request will not be granted, Jan-Jan will file a petition on Tuesday asking the Court of Appeals to oblige the concerned hospital to release all his medical records.
Without the names of the medical personnel involved, Tumulak said, they could not file a proper complaint before the Professional Regulation Commission, which has the capacity to reprimand, suspend or revoke licenses of medical practitioners involved if they are proven guilty.
Meanwhile, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the persons involved should be named.
“Things like these make the medical profession look bad when they are less candid about it… These doctors, who do they work for? They work for the people. What businesses do they have in keeping the names?” he said.
If a similar incident will involve the city-run Cebu City Medical Center, Osmeña said “even without anything happening, I want to close CCMC.”
He added that “if something like that happens, samot. Magdala na lang ko og posporo didto og usa ka botelyang kerosene (I will bring a match there and a bottle of kerosene).”
Teleron said that VSMMC did a “very comprehensive report,” which the committee repeatedly reviewed.
Sanctions
The hospital’s report contained, among others, a letter of explanation from each person involved and “properly-recorded” minutes of the interviews with each of them. It also stated the sanctions imposed by the hospital, such as the issuance of a written reprimand.
As there were nursing students involved, their schools were informed of their participation.
The sanctions that will be imposed could range from a reprimand, suspension or dismissal.
The violations were studied based on the VSMMC operating room (OR) manual of policies, the medical practitioner’s code of ethics, and the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials.
Teleron said there was a pre-operative conference where the surgical team decided to appoint only one person, a junior surgical resident, with an official camera to document the operation because of the “rarity of the case.”
“Unfortunately, what happened at the OR got out of hand. There was no crowd control. Looking at the video, there were mobile phones around used to take footages,” she said. (NRC/KNR of Sun.Star Cebu)For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Manila. (April 22, 2008 issue)
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