VSMMC case: No rules, but a suspension? Hmmm...

I always read the news of the past week after I return from a foreign trip. One glaring piece of news that caught my eye was a news report from The Freeman last Saturday May 31st that the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) Hospital Medical Director Dr. Gerardo Aquino admitted to rule lapses in the Operating Room before a Congressional hearing done at the Provincial Capitol.

If I got this right then I dare say that Dr. Aquino made a grievous error by suspending the medical staff, doctors and nurses for violating nothing! If there such rules in the OR then at least we would know what would be the various penalties for any offense, that should be clearly indicated. But since there were no such rules, why then did Dr. Aquino give a three-month suspension? How did he come to make this decision?

The Department of Health (DoH) Dr. Susana Madarieta should now stop Dr. Aquino from further investigating this case simply because Dr. Aquino himself must now be investigated for the rule lapses he openly admitted before the Congressional body! If there are no rules in the OR, then whose fault is it? Certainly not the suspended medical staff that are fast emerging as mere scapegoats for the incompetence of Dr. Aquino, the VSMMC and the DoH as whole!

In fact when Dr. Aquino said before the Congressional Hearing committee, “Proper decorum should be observed inside the operating room. No cellphones, videotaping, picture taking is allowed except for research purposes, but with proper permission and signed consent from the patient, obtained by the surgeon and with the approval of the operating room supervisor” from where did Dr. Aquino get this statement when he just said that they had no rules in the OR? Was this a face-saving statement just to show the he actually had a modicum of rules for the OR or was he lying just like any other politician?

This case gets more interesting whenever Dr. Aquino opens his mouth. For instance I heard from one VSMMC insider that cellphones are freely allowed inside the OR for many years now and Dr. Aquino didn’t even bother to reprimand anyone until this incident was blown out of proportion!

In his sworn statement, Dr. Max Montecillo pointed out, “In the 3 years I have served as a surgical resident in VSMMC, I do not remember a single occasion when our superiors conducted any orientation to inform us that there is indeed a policy against taking pictures in the OR, especially to aid in our learning process. On the contrary I remember consultants and superiors reprimanding surgical residents who deliver presentations using only words or outlines without actual pictures or documentation. The consultants keep telling us that since we are in an era of high technology, it is unforgivable not to document what we’re supposed to learn in the course of our work.”   

I would also like to point out that Dr. Aquino has apparently singled out Dr. Max Joseph Montecillo as one of those who brought in a cellphone to which he is now being suspended. Yet we know for a fact that he was not the person who uploaded the video to YouTube. So now why did Dr. Aquino suspend Dr. Montecillo? What rules did he violate?

I gathered that the official VSMMC video footage taken by Dr. Joseph Alfred B. del Leon showed other members of the medical staff holding their cellphone cameras. Why haven’t these people been identified? Is it true that Dr. Aquino is related to someone inside that OR who is also one of the still unidentified culprits? I have no doubt that the DoH investigating team has only shown it made a lot of rush judgments. For instance, why didn’t they put Dr. Aquino under investigation especially now that he admitted that they have no rules or regulations in the OR? Is this just whitewash?

At this point, I would like to believe that the suspension by Dr. Aquino of the medial staff should be considered illegal in light of the testimony he gave before the Congressional committee. I’d like to point out that we are still a nation of laws and not of men and we should live by the rules that we make. So if there’s none, then why are people being punished for these none-existent rules? If Dr. Aquino doesn’t lift this suspension, I would like to believe that he would be in for grave abuse of power and discretion!

Just ask any motorist who gets apprehended by a traffic enforcer for a non-existent traffic violation. Surely you’d get mad if you were stopped by the police for traffic rules that haven’t been enacted into a law! What happened last January at the Operating Room of the VSMMC is an incident that the DoH should learn lessons from. Sure, let Congress enact that Anti-Discrimination Law if they so wish. But while there are no rules and penalties for similar misbehaviors, then why should the VSMMC Medical Staff be made scapegoats for the mess that VSMMC created in the first place?