EDITORIAL - A broken health system

This is the state of public health care in this country:

A 10-year-old boy was confined in a private hospital in Catbalogan City on July 11 because of breathing difficulties.

The boy named Dayne had complained of a sore throat on July 9 and developed a fever the next day. In the hospital, he had a seizure and was intubated, but there was no intensive care unit to provide the necessary interventions. The mother was advised to transfer the boy to a better-equipped hospital with an ICU in Tacloban City.

That’s a driving distance of about 105 kilometers, and the drive could take over two hours. The hospital said its ambulance had no driver at the time, and if one became available, the transport would cost P15,000.

The mother went to city hall for help, but was told that its ambulance was getting an oil change and would be available only at noon. She went to the fire department and then the Samar Provincial Hospital, and was reportedly told that the ambulances had no drivers.

Following the boy’s death, the provincial government claimed its two ambulances were transporting patients when the mother sought help.

It took four hours and the help of an ambulance nurse before the mother found an ambulance with a driver, also costing P15,000 for the vehicle, plus P1,000 for the driver and another P1,000 for gasoline.

Along the way, she said the boy’s breathing tube kept getting dislodged because of the bumpy road. The ambulance stopped over in two towns in search of a doctor who could reinsert the tube, but the mother was told that no one was available “because it was a Saturday.”

When the ambulance finally reached a hospital in Tacloban, the boy was declared dead on arrival.

“Around 8 a.m. we rushed him to the hospital. By 2 p.m. my son was gone,” the grieving mother wrote on social media. “How many lives does Samar have to lose before we fix our broken health system?”

She lamented: “What killed my son wasn’t just his illness. It was the system, the negligence, the people who were supposed to save him.”

Catbalogan is the capital of Samar, and it lacks ambulances.

The country’s health care services suffer from an acute lack of everything, compounded by low pay for many health professionals as well as corruption and inefficiency facilitated by politicians.

Dayne’s tragedy, unfortunately, is not rare in this country. And equally unfortunately, the response to the problem continues to be grossly inadequate.