How far will your 200 Pesos go?
Ask me that and I’ll start whining about my two hundred peso-worth of bus and tricycle fair I spend back and forth the new PUBLIC hospital that I am doing my duty right now.
Ask the patients there and they’ll answer you, “MILES!!”
My first patient in that hospital was Renato, 14 years old. Since I am fresh from my month-long duty in a private hospital, I was deeply perplexed when I learned that though the Doctor’s order, which is MGH (may go home), was given as early as the other day, he was still there. Usually the patients do not wait for another day to go home after a week long confinement. But here he was, lying on his unlinen bed.
I thought that he might be waiting for some sort of clearance certificates or test results. It only dawned to me that my patient doesn’t have the money to pay for the hospital bill when I met his father asking me to help him process a Medical Certificate to take advantage of the 1000 Peso-worth “financial support” graciously sponsored by their barangay.
The next day, Renato was still there. And I was assigned to another patient, Carina, 12 years old.
After the usual Good Mornings and Hellos, the next thing that I always do is to check for all the tubings that is inserted on my patient. She was suffering from Diarrhea and surely an IVF (dextrose) bottle was inserted on her right hand. When I was about to check the infusion rate (the drops per minute of the dextrose inside the bottle) i was surprised to learn that the bottle was empty. I hastily looked for backflows of blood but there was none. The tube was kinked.
To make the story short, the girl’s mother doesn’t have any penny to pay for anothe set of medicines and another Dextrose. She was planning to bring back her daughter home. When she finally talked to the Head nurse, the nurse asked her to sign a certification of her refusal with the doctor’s order. The signing made her hesitant so she asked his brother if she should pull out the girl. In the end they both decided that they cannot do anything anymore since they lack the money to pay for the treatment.
As a student nurse, I already made some assesments about the girl and I know that she wouldn’t make if ever they’ll pull her out. She’s really skinny, and pale, and according to her she still have watery and foul smelling stool. So I cornered the woman and reasoned this to her. But she said she has no choice. So i told her that she can try asking for some financial assistance from the Mayor. And she did. The child, thank God, remained inside the hospital.
The issue…
…I was not able to realize how little the Government is spending on the Nation’s budget for health care until that time. My classmate’s patient took off the dextrose that was inserted on his hand and ran away discreetly while we were having our lunch.
The hospital is incredibly untidy. All the restrooms are flooded by murky water and are breeding grounds for mosquitos. There are cobwers everywhere and the place is just distressing… but the hospital did not forget to buy a “fingertrax”-an automatic Hi tech time-in device where the hospital’s personnels, instead of using automated IDs or a time cards, can use only their fingerprints to time in.
GuGuardian Angel Acosta
