I DON’T know what was on that day when there was a lot of talk about heart illness. It was a Friday, a day that employees marvel about because it is the end of a tiring weekday and the start of the much-anticipated respite from back-breaking tasks in the workplace.
What I mean by heart trouble is not the trivial heartbreak brought about by the likes of Gerard Anderson to her collection of shampoo endorser girlfriends or exes who include actress Bea Alonzo who went to the social media to ventilate her heart out.
The heart ailment that I am referring to is the Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) that develops when the major blood vessels that supply the heart with blood, oxygen, and nutrients become damaged caused by cholesterol deposits or plaque in our arteries.
The first of that CAD-related encounters was early in the morning that day when I chanced upon in the elevator a fellow faculty who like me also underwent an angioplasty operation last year. I ask my colleague how much did the procedure cost her and she answered that it was a howling P2 million.
My cardiologist explained that angioplasty intends to open blocked arteries to restore normal blood flow to the heart muscles. It is done by inserting a thin tube through a small puncture in the leg to the heart. The blocked artery is opened by inflating a tiny balloon into the area blocked by plaque deposits.
The second encounter on the topic was when I bumped into an old friend in one of the food stalls in Freedom Park where I usually consume my bowl of “utan bisaya” and a plate of cooked corn grits for lunch.
The discussion about the heart ailment started when my old friend noticed that I was having vegetable and corn for lunch when I usually have humba and other fatty dishes of meat. I told him that I was forced to change my food consumption habit after I underwent angioplasty last year and spent half a million pesos.
No doubt that angioplasty is a great technological invention that saves lives but the cost of administering it deeply hurts the patient’s family, especially if the institution that administers the procedure jacks up prices of the materials.
As a result of my canvass on the price of administering the angioplasty procedure, I discovered that one hospital gives a separate price for the coronary stent at P 49,500, coronary balloon P 20,515, PCI guide catheter P 10,098, PCI guidewire P 8,979 each.
However, I was also able to get a quotation from a supplier that would sell to me the four materials consisting of one cronary stent, Two coronary balloon, PCI guide catheter and two guidewires as a set at P 45,000 only inclusive of value added tax.
The quotation is good only for one stent but some patients require five or more stents to be placed and in that case, the cost of the quoted material would also multiply five times excluding the doctor’s professional fee.
I am not concluding that this is anomalous in the absence of a formal investigation but I believed that the two sets of documents in my possession are enough bases for the Department of Health to check on this for public interest.
Now we know what hurts more than the actual physical condition of our loved ones with CAD.