AN official of Chong Hua Hospital said it has already submitted its response to the letter of Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Chief Jose Mario Espino. It was sent to the PRO 7 headquarters in Camp Sergio Osmeña Sr. yesterday afternoon.
“In behalf of Dr. Helen Po, Chong Hua Hospital chief operations officer, we already sent our official response to Gen. Espino and it was received by SPO2 Barbat,” Dr. Joanne Cosin, senior vice president for clinical operations, told SunStar Cebu in a phone interview.
Last Monday, PO3 David Naraja Jr. was taken to the private hospital in Cebu City after suffering injuries during an alleged shootout with suspected hitman Jessie Largo in Talisay City.
Espino earlier said that a problem initially occurred when the hospital asked for a P10,000 deposit from the police.
However, this is reportedly not the first time that a police officer injured in the line of duty was refused of hospital admittance for failing to present the deposit money.
Sought for comment, Mayor Tomas Osmeña said “Chong Hua has never been like that.” The mayor is among the many patients who have been seeking medical help from the hospital over the years.
He said that the conflict may have arose from the changes in the management’s system following the demise of Leo Lim Liu, who served as Chong Hua Hospital president. Liu died last February.
In a letter dated Oct. 17 addressed to Po, Espino said they “feel aggrieved” by the incidents.
He said that last Aug. 15, PO3 Jemuel Villaflores also experienced the same incident when he was taken to the hospital after sustaining an injury on his arm while on an anti-drug operation against a fellow police officer in Talisay.
“Our office is contemplating of instituting appropriate actions to air our respective grievances in proper forum arising from the two separate incidents the personnel of this office have encountered with the said medical institution,” reads a portion of the letter.
For his part, Mayor Osmeña hopes that the matter will be resolved soon.
“If I feel they can solve this in their level, well and good. But I don’t like this incident to happen again. If it will happen again, I will take hard steps because we have to protect the lives of our policemen, especially those injured in the line of duty,” said Osmeña.
“(By hard steps, I meant) close it down. I don’t mind. It doesn’t matter if were friends or not,” he added.