This Isn't Just Any Other Bad Day

Yesterday we learned that a friend's dad who was reported missing since March 2 was finally found. As expected he was already dead.

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During the past couple of weeks, we have been occupied with formulating the possible reasons of his 'disappearance'. At the current political state, it isn't an impossibility that people - regardless of their political leanings, if they even have one, disappear without any trace. Think about the countless political and extrajudicial killings that we constantly read on the dailies.

In a country where poverty remains unsolved and crime rates are justified by the latter, we have also considered that he was probably mugged somewhere, body left somewhere and nobody would seem to care. After all, what's another robbery-related killing than mere statistics in the ballooning crime rate these days?

With so much empathy, Dad at least refused to offer all reasons I mentioned above. In such an instance, a possibility of a bad news will erase the little hope they have in ever finding him. So we got into thinking of other 'more pleasing' possibilities.

Male, in his early 50's, has been working for most of his life raising a family of 7. He had sent them to school, children got well-paying jobs, and the youngest among the children is still in grade school. Male, after years of service and hard work gets a big bonus; went to the office to collect it and suddenly disappears.

The family, friends and co-workers attested that Male has been quite a discerning family man, so that erases the possibility of him having another family out of the marriage that he could disappear to. They said his only activity after work is staying in front of the TV, i.e. spending it at home, in the comforts of his own family. A truth, since when he didn't come home, Wife have had a difficulty sleeping, was up crying most times.

I asked myself, if I were him, going through life with all that he'd done for his family and getting the opportunity to give a little something for myself, I'd probably be off somewhere fulfilling a long desired dream, like say, taking a vacation somewhere, going home to my province where my relatives are - but two weeks is a bit to long to be lost in fulfilling a dream and making your family worry about where you are. (The longest I can get lost with the luxury of time doing the things I'd want to do is less than 24 hours - and I'm not even freakishly a 'family person'.)

His family's efforts in finding him, after continuous plugs in all TV networks and radio stations and inquiries in hospitals and police stations, had ended up in submission to the fact that 'he might have died'. Through a friend, they even managed to check surveillance tapes taken from the Metro Rail Transport that he often takes when he goes home. And so they waited for the news to come.

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A doctor at a public hospital in Manila responded to a TV plug sent by the family. He said that Male came to the hospital several times to seek treatment for a heart condition, which he kept from his family all these times. March 2, he went there directly from work, allegedly complaining of a chest pain he was suffering from. They admitted him for treatment. In a few days, he suffered a heart attack leading to a stroke that has paralyzed his speech and movement. Yesterday, he died from the disease.

Although almost everyone who followed the drama of his disappearance entertained the idea of him being dead after weeks of failed attempt in finding him, it was still hard to accept. (Until now, I am saddened by what happened, and frustrated that there isn't much to do.)

When I heard about it, I had lots of questions in my mind: What are the treatments the doctor/ hospital gave him? Was he given proper medications? Why didn't they bother informing the family of his state? What are the usual procedures in cases as such in hospitals? Is this another failure on the part of public health system? Why did the doctor/ hospital just bother getting in touch with the family only after seeing the call for missing person on TV? Are doctors only concerned in valuing the life of a single person without considering its meaning in a greater context - his family, for instance? Was that even just for humane reasons?

Somehow, in bits and pieces, some of the questions were answered. Although, I wasn't personally satisfied with the answers I got, but at this time, it was all that I had.

As a standard, Male received work-ups and was advised for immediate admission. Probably, Male didn’t think it’d be his last visit to the hospital; it didn’t cause an alarm to inform his family. After three days, he was in coma from heart attack and stroke. The doctor admitted to have taken one thousand pesos from his wallet to cover medications. (But later I learned that he didn’t receive the medication because the money he got was insufficient. The money was nowhere to be found and remained unaccounted for.)

It is part of hospital proceedings, public and private, to have the patient or a representative thereof in case he is not in the right mental state to sign a waiver and submit to medical procedures. As I can remember the last time I had to undergo another surgical procedure due to a breast mass last year, the waiver said something like: YOU (patient) is in full capacity – mental and otherwise, to submit yourself to a medical procedure but with a disclaimer at the end that there’ll be no assurance of a cure. That’s not exactly the words on the waiver that I signed, but that clearly captures everything in it. (I think that goes almost the same in public hospitals.) I even had a friendly discourse with my doctor about the irony of the statement in the waiver. I mean, come on. The reason you went to a doctor/ hospital is to seek a cure to whatever your ailment is. Otherwise, how different could they be from faith healers?

Anyway, after seeking out legal advice from friends regarding Male’s case, they said that the doctor cannot be sued for medical malpractice – assuming that he was given all work-ups and medications that were well documented. The hospital can also get away with negligence because he most probably signed a waiver before admission.

In the course of desperation over helplessness, I had asked a few friends from the media for help – to expose (if there is anything to expose) the way public health service is delivered by looking through Male’s case. This isn’t just one case of negligence and apparent inhumane hospital practice (I don’t know if I coined this right.)They told me almost the same thing, like what my doctor and lawyer friends told me. If there was no evident malpractice and negligence, what is there to expose? I was near begging when I told them, “Well, you can always look at the delivery of public health service to the poor and the expensive cost of medicines in the country!”

They said: mass media had done countless of reports on that, how different could this one be? It seems that this isn’t one of the stories that sell like hot potato. (It’s hard to get through mainstream media on an ordinary season, and with the national and local election coming, the mainstream media circus comes along with them.) Working for almost two years in the media had taught me, that the news we get is altered to fit the demands of the market: and that we are mere readers, watchers, listeners, consumers or more aptly, absorbers.

***

So, this isn’t just any other bad day. We will be at the wake tonight. But I had one thought in my mind: “Can doctors go beyond the practice of medicine and be more humane? After all, medicine shouldn’t be just about saving life, but valuing life farther than its biological worth.”