The lack of money to pay for medical bills drove a 43-year-old father to hold hostage his newborn child at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center yesterday dawn.
After the close to three-hour drama, Edito Patiño, a fisherman from barangay Cotcot, Liloan gave up.
The reason why he went berserk was that the medical bills of his wife, Alicia, who gave birth via Caesarian section two days ago, had already reached P15,000 and the money in his pocket was only P2,000.
Patiño reportedly went inside the ward where his wife was staying and took their two-day-old child.
He reportedly ran towards Ward 1 of the hospital and threatened to drop the child from a window unless the media would go there.
News crews from television stations ABS-CBN and GMA arrived at the scene to help placate Patiño.
His neighbor, Mart Pepito, who works as a nurse assigned at Emergency Room of the hospital also approached him and asked him to surrender the baby to the attending nurses.
“Magpakamatay unta mi sa akong anak kay lisod kaayo wala gyud koy nakita nga kuwarta para ibayad sa ospital,” Patino told reporters after he gave up.
The crisis started at 12:50 am and was over at 2:35 a.m.
Patiño was taken away by policemen from the Fuente station led by Inspector Bonifacio Garciano.
The suspect was first brought to the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) stockade, but was later brought to the Mental Health Institute of the VSMMC for the evaluation of his mental health.
Dr. Gerardo Aquino, medical director of VSMMC, yesterday denied that they did not attend to the wife of Patiño.
“Nganong ma problema man siya (Edito) ug billings nga wala pa may billings gi issue nila unya gitagad man sila pagmaayo dinhi sa ospital. Gani in less than two hours na operahan dayon ang iyang asawa,” Dr. Aquino said.
In a separate interview with The Freeman, hospital information officer Eleodoro Mongaya Jr. said the hospital has package deal for patients who come for pre-natal care.
In case of the Patiño’s, they only came to the hospital on the day of the delivery.
“We have our package program here. Ang uban man gud kung manganakay na, mao pa ang ilang pag-anhi, wala gyud nila na-planohi, so diha ang problema,” Mongaya said.
Luckily the baby was unhurt despite the incident.— with Ramil V. Ayuman