The cause celebre taping incident

C'mon. You can put a plaster tape on a baby's face and for that matter your own face and yank it off twenty to fifty times and you'd probably hear a howl to kingdom come but no one will die. This is with regards to the "cruel, inhumane, taping of a pacifier to a baby's lips" which is threatening the loss of the hard earned respect and possibly existence of a historical and noble institution devoted to maternal and child care for decades - the Cebu Maternity Hospital on B. Rodriguez St.

The Cebu maternity house was started by Elizabeth Pond, the wife of Dr. Arlington Pond, an American Doctor serving the US Army Medical Corp.

He opted to stay to help the American authorities govern the islands and became the first Public Health officer of Cebu where he calmed a raging cholera epidemic, established public hygiene practices and with Sergio Osmeña Sr. helped establish the first government hospital outside of Manila - The Southern Islands Hospital in 1908. Dr. Pond became its first hospital director.

His wife, Elizabeth Pond, soon followed her husband to Cebu, probably the first American woman to step on Philippine soil, and soon immersed herself into maternal and child care opening a clinic in a nipa thatched building beside the Customs House. Which soon became the Cebu Maternity House in its present location - an adjunct of the Southern Islands Hospital nearby.

Dr. Arlington Pond died after an appendicitis attack in 1932 while Elizabeth Pond who stayed on in their adopted home of Cebu was incarcerated in the UST concentration camp in WWII and died there.

That  is why two streets have been named to honor this couple.

Postwar Cebu found hospitals inadequate for maternal and child care. What? Give birth in general hospitals with facilities serving other patients with infectious or communicable diseases? The Cebu Maternity had a homey atmosphere, the nurses and midwives were caring and the doctors were tops in their field of obstetrics and gynecology. Their fees were reasonable and catered to couples starting a new family. They also had a charity ward and difficult cases were channeled to the Southern Islands next door.

Please, let's not over blow the incident to the point of threatening the license of an institution that has served the maternal and child care of the Cebu community for decades. Unintentionally, the attendants on the nursery may have been remiss in this instance as they tended to the baby mentioned BUT IT WAS NOT FATAL. Give the management a chance to correct this failing. Give them a break.