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Despite a warning from President Duterte to hospitals not to refuse patients amid the quarantine due to COVID-19, a woman who recently gave birth in Caloocan died of blood loss after being turned away by six hospitals on Friday. | @mjaysoncayabyab
Jan Christian Bulatao, a resident of Barangay 183, shared his grueling five hour ordeal with his wife Katherine looking for a hospital to admit her after she gave birth in their Caloocan home. | @mjaysoncayabyab
While the baby was healthy after birth, his wife needed an operation to remove the placenta in her body. They went first at the North Caloocan Doctors Hospital but they were referred to another hospital due to lack of blood supply. | @mjaysoncayabyab
At the Commonwealth Hospital and Medical Center, they were also turned away because of lack of rooms and because of cases there of COVID-19. | @mjaysoncayabyab
Under the Strengthened Anti-Hospital Deposit Law recently signed in 2017, hospitals are prohibited from demanding downpayment from patients. The recently passed law imposes hefty fines and jail time on errant medical practitioners. | @mjaysoncayabyab
In FEU Hospital, they were asked to pay P4,000 for the PPE to be worn by the hospital staff, even though he thought the PPE may have been been donated, Bulatao said. | @mjaysoncayabyab
1/2 Hoping to try their chance again at a public hospital, Bulatao said they went back to the Bermudez Polymedic Hospital in Malaria, Caloocan but were told the hospital has no operating equipment. Since it was on the way, they went on.. | @mjaysoncayabyab
2/2 to San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan where they were refused by two hospitals - Skyline Hospital and Medical Center and Grace General Hospital - due to the lack of obstetrician. | @mjaysoncayabyab
When they arrived at the San Jose Del Monte General Hospital - the only hospital not to turn them away - his wife was declared dead on arrival Friday night. | @mjaysoncayabyab
Asked whom he blames, Bulatao said he does not even blame the tight security protocols in quarantine checkpoints. It was the hospitals that had a lot of reasons for denying his wife, he said | @mjaysoncayabyab
“I also blame myself. I did not have the cash when the FEU Hospital asked for a downpayment. The trip from the FEU Hospital to Bulacan took two hours. My wife has lost a lot of blood,” he said | @mjaysoncayabyab
He hoped the government would help his family in filing a complaint against the hospitals that denied to assist his wife during the enhanced community quarantine. "We want to know our options, because we don't want what we experienced to happen again" | @mjaysoncayabyab
6 hospitals in Cabanatuan city are facing an NBI probe for allegedly refusing to admit a farmer with asthma who later died. President Duterte in a briefing cited this case in warning hospitals that refuse patients that they would be prosecuted. | @mjaysoncayabyab
