A ONE minute and 25 second video footage did not only go viral in just a blink of an eye, but it also ended two years’ worth of work experience for three nurses of the Tuburan District Hospital.
The nurses were suspended last Feb. 10 for taking and uploading a video of suspected drug personality Gembe Casas, who had been wounded in a police operation. He died an hour later. The video went viral on the internet.
Nine days later, the nurses, who were all job order workers, were terminated from service Tuesday, Feb. 19.
After conducting an investigation on the matter, the Provincial Health Office (PHO) grievance committee found that there was “direct responsibility and liability” involved, as two of the nurses actually took the video and uploaded it on social media.
Although the third nurse only took a photo of Casas and did not upload it, the medical worker was still held liable for violating the Data Privacy Act.
A midwife who asked for a copy of the video, on the other hand, will be referred to the Provincial Human Resources Office for further investigation. She has been a permanent employee of the Tuburan District Hospital.
In an interview, PHO Chief Rene Catan said Gov. Hilario Davide III agreed with the committee’s recommendation to terminate the service of the three nurses.
He also stressed that the Provincial Capitol’s concern is to terminate the nurses’ contracts and not push for the revocation of their licenses.
“That’s how grave a misconduct and ethical issue with regards to privacy against a person is. We will ask our health care workers again to please refrain from taking videos or pictures of our patients without their permission. We will not hesitate to terminate people if they violate the memo of the Province,” he added.
Catan lamented that they might have to make rounds again in the 16 provincial and district hospitals to re-orient medical personnel on their responsibilities and duties.
He added that one of the nurses claimed that she took the video for “record purposes.”
“The reason they gave us (me and the governor) during the investigation was that they took the video for record purposes. They said they took the video because they did not know who he (Casas) was. For them, they did it to determine who this person is because he was brought in with the police and they did not know him so they recorded it. It’s not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to focus on what you need to do and what you have to do,” Catan said.
Catan reiterated that the hospital’s medical personnel followed their standard protocol when they attended to Casas.
“The nurses and the physicians didn’t commit any lapses. They did their best based on their capability and capacity as medical professionals. If you really look at it (the video), it really gave the public a bad impression. But if you took that one-minute video in the context of the entire incident, then you’d see that everything was done properly based on procedure,” he said.
The video had earned the ire of netizens for showing medical personnel just looking at the patient, rather than attending to him, giving the impression that the hospital neglected him.
He also extended his condolences and apologized to Casas’s bereaved family in behalf of the PHO.
“We’re very objective and impartial kung unsay iyang (as to the) cause of death. Amoa (Our duty) is to really save lives. It was not really our intent that this will go out in the media. It is just unfortunate that it went out. On behalf of the Province, that action does not necessarily represent the policy of the province on this. Let us just say it is an outlier and it did happen within our control and the Province acted on it by not renewing their contracts. In behalf of the Province and the office, we apologize for this event,” Catan said. (RTF)