PGH has only one last x-ray machine

A call from a legislator usually is enough for executive officials to act. Not at the Dept. of Transport and Communication, most notorious for red tape. Officials there have been sitting nearly a year on the classification of electric jeepneys as public utility vehicles. Fed up, Sen. Pia Cayetano has filed a resolution for them to speed up such listing, so that the eco-friendly jeepneys finally can operate as mass transport. It now has to take common action by senators to make bureaucrats do the right thing — if they will.

“The e-jeepney may be the best thing to happen to public transport,” Cayetano says, citing the invention’s smoke- and noise-free test runs. But delay in its PUV classification, a mere formality, has prevented the needed registration and plate numbering for mass transport use.

The environmentalist-senator stresses the e-jeepney’s potential to clean up the city air. It runs on battery power, and thus does not emit toxic fumes that scientists blame for rising incidence of respiratory illness among drivers and commuters. In the process it helps slow down climate change.

Aside from health and environment, the e-jeepney offers other pluses for society. If all jeepneys turn to rechargeable cells, the resulting clean air will encourage private motorists to commute, and so decongest city traffic. And there’s the much-needed relief from soaring oil prices. The e-jeepney can run 100-120 km on a single battery charge of eight hours. If a unit plies the five-kilometer Ayala Avenue-Washington Street route in Makati, it can run at least three days on that one charge, costing P110-P140. The benefits can be passed on to passengers in terms of lower fares. The e-jeepney can carry 12-15 passengers.

Cayetano cannot fathom why the DOTC is delaying the classification. E-jeepney pioneer Green Renewable Independent Power Producer and its partners Greenpeace and Solar Energy Co. had applied for categorizing in July. But the papers have languished on the desk of DOTC Dir. Ildefonso Patdu, Cayetano laments. “I had even written DOTC Sec. Leandro Mendoza last March, but our office hasn’t received a reply even if my staff kept following up,” she says.

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What’s happening to the Philippine General Hospital? The country’s premier tertiary hospital lacks x-ray machines. And anxious doctors can’t go anywhere but to the press for relief.

The Radiology Department’s air-con conked out months ago, so the equipment broke down one by one from overheat. Since ten days back only one x-ray machine has been left functioning. The Emergency Room and the In-Patient Ward must now share that one remaining unit. There are only two other x-rays at sprawling PGH, both old, one at the Out-Patient Department and a portable for the Operating Room.

The Radiology Department’s one machine is being used more for emergency patients, and only for chest x-rays. Doctors must pull in-patients up, whether paying or charity, to have vital x-rays taken at nearby clinics or other hospitals. At times even emergency patients who can are directed to go to the clinics outside, rather than wait too long in line inside.

PGH doctors have alerted their colleagues in other hospitals and private clinics: if they must refer patients to the PGH, please have their x-rays taken elsewhere before going. Reminder: even if a patient’s “injury and medical clearance examination” is complete, PGH doctors still might need to prescribe special x-rays. Yet the PGH has no more traction films, stress films, or special views. The docs can handle patients that will not need such x-rays. Those who do, they painfully advise to go to other medical centers.

X-rays may not seem to be lifesaving. But these are crucial for doctors to make exact diagnoses, prescriptions and surgeries. X-rays form part of basic treatments of pulmonary, cardiac and orthopedic ailments. Hopefully, PGH can find the funds to repair or replace the radiology gear and air-con.

PGH treatment is cheap, which is why the poor go there. Needless to say, the docs are top-rate and dedicated. Some docs even pay for the meds and meals of indigent patients. But they can only do so much without basic facilities for good medical work. If the foremost state hospital suffers from equipment shortage, what more the smaller public clinics? To think that government was ready to plunk $330 million in an overpriced but needless broadband network.

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Whatever happened to Amin Boratong, indicted operator of the Pasig City shabu flea market busted in 2006? Ask NBI agents why his trial isn’t proceeding, and they’ll pull you aside to whisper that he’s untouchable. He contributed big to a high politico’s campaign in 2004, and is being shielded from prosecution.

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