A long journey

Finally I can write this story, which has been pending for three months, awaiting a proper homecoming.

Thursday before last, two days shy of three months, my colleague in media Margie Quimpo-Espino arrived in Manila from India. The rest of the group – eight of us – had taken the flight back from New Delhi, through Hong Kong, on Nov. 30 last year. Four days before that, nine of us had left Manila for New Delhi, on what turned out to be a most eventful trip.

We were attending the awarding ceremonies for the second cycle of the Asia Pacific regional competition for sustainable construction sponsored by the Holcim Foundation of Switzerland. Three years ago, during the first cycle of the awards, two Philippine entries had won prizes, one of them making it as finalist in the global awards.

Our flight to New Delhi through Bangkok was scheduled for early afternoon; that morning, Thai protesters took over the Suvarnabhumi Airport outside Bangkok, and all flights to and from the Thai capital were cancelled. We were told to wait for word as our hosts tried to book alternate flights. By noon we were told we would take a late afternoon flight to Hong Kong, and from there fly to New Delhi, to arrive before dawn.

At the New Delhi airport we waited for nearly two hours for our luggage to appear on the carousel. A couple of our fellow passengers were ready to lynch the airport staff, none of whom would tell us what the hold-up was all about. Hours later, when we were finally on the bus enroute to our hotel, the Taj Palace, I turned on my cellphone and got the shocking text message. My colleague at The STAR news desk informed me that terrorists had attacked the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, scores of people were dead and the hotel was on fire; was that where I was?

Over the next four days all of us had to answer that question repeatedly and send reassuring text messages to concerned family and friends back home: No, we were in New Delhi, not Mumbai; we were safe, everything seemed normal and there was no sign of siege. I recall only one person among the group thought that maybe we should take the next flight home; the idea was immediately vetoed.

The Holcim Foundation staff handled the situation extremely well. First of all, a significant number of participants did not arrive due to the Bangkok airport closure. With the Mumbai attack, extra security measures were put in place, but we were not on lock down or siege mode.  

We proceeded with the awards activities, which were toned down in deference to the still unfolding tragedy in Mumbai and in sympathy with the victims of the attack. A gala dinner-show was cancelled, and visits to the heritage sites were limited to ensure maximum security for participants.

Unfortunately, we lucked out this year and there was no Filipino among the awardees. The winning projects included some very interesting ones, which I will deal with another time.

Following all official functions, the nine of us from the Philippines stayed an extra day to make a trip to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal, an absolute must for any visitor to India. It was Saturday, Nov. 29, and we were supposed to start out at 5 a.m., but because of a misunderstanding regarding transport, we were delayed and managed to cajole the staff at the hotel coffee shop to open their breakfast buffet a bit earlier, and we all were properly fortified for the 6-hour drive to Agra.

About two hours out of New Delhi, rambling along a dusty road in our mini-bus, we got to talking about a controversy back home involving people all of us knew. But only Margie seemed to know the real score, and the rest of us were all ears to get the inside story from Margie. As she started to tell the story, she complained of a headache and asked for some paracetamol. Sherryl Yao, of Holcim Philippines, took some out of her bag and was handing it to Margie when the latter said, “Grabe, ang sakit ng ulo ko. I think I’m going to pass out.” She slumped forward, onto the cushion of the empty seat beside me. My immediate reaction was, “Ang drama naman ni Margie,” but when she slumped onto the floor, I realized it was serious.

What followed was a mad scramble by eight people in a cramped mini-bus to get Margie upright – to a sitting position – and to try and revive what we thought was a fainting spell. White Flower, Vicks Vaporub, water, frenzied fanning to get her air (the bus air-conditioning did pitifully little to properly condition the air) were our first aid measures. We told the driver and the guide to get us to the nearest hospital, but unfortunately they too were unfamiliar with the area where we were. We spotted the Amity Women’s Clinic and told the driver to go there. That turned out to be merely a birthing center, with no doctor or any medical personnel on hand. We were directed to another clinic a few buildings down, where we managed to get the still unconscious Margie into a wheelchair. The doctor came out to meet us, but when he saw Margie he told us the clinic – a maternity clinic – could not handle such a case, and pointed us to a hospital some ten minutes away.

Meanwhile, architect Joven Ignacio phoned his brother in Manila for long distance diagnosis and instructions; he said it might be a stroke and we should get her immediately to a hospital.

We really kicked up dust on the road until we pulled in to the driveway of the Om Hospital, in a town we later learned was called Palwal. An attendant got us a gurney, and a doctor checked Margie’s vital signs as we related the circumstances of her falling unconscious. Margie was wheeled up to the Intensive Care Unit on the third floor, under the care of Dr. Lakshmi.

The wait was excruciating; we were all functioning on adrenalin, jumping out of our skin, hardly able to sit still. We made intermittent trips up to the third floor, waiting for word from inside the ICU. Phinma Properties’s Willy and Dada Uy started praying the rosary. There was a frenzy of telephone calls – to our hosts and the organizers in New Delhi, to Holcim Philippines, to Margie’s husband Chet, to the Philippine Embassy in New Delhi (I must specially mention Maria Bugarin who went out of her way to help us citizens in distress, and who helped Margie and Chet through their long stay in India)…  

Finally Dr. Lakshmi came to tell us that Margie was stabilizied for the moment, but tests had to be done to determine her true condition. She had to be moved to a bigger and better equipped hospital, and an ambulance was on its way to pick her up. Later that day she was moved to the Fortis Escort Hospital in Faridabad, with us following behind in our mini-bus.

I will not go into the medical details, but I do want to say something about the quality of medical care in India. Even in the little provincial hospital called Om, Margie received excellent care. In fact, the doctors at Fortis, which is a chain of tertiary hospitals across India, were all praises for what Dr. Lakshmi and his staff had done.

And for saving Margie’s life, we paid Om Hospital the princely sum of $135.98, or about P6,390 (conversion at that time was about P47 to $1), broken down as follows: $61.41 for doctors’ fee and hospital stay; $20.47 for her hospital dress (now this was expensive!); and $54.10 (or about P2,550) for medicine, which we bought at the pharmacy next to the hospital in order to replace what was used, which was quite a lot – two big plastic bags worth. This is what our cheaper medicine law will hopefully accomplish – give our people the medicine they need at truly affordable cost. Those opposed to the bill may continue to claim that generic drugs or medicine brought in on parallel importation are fake or ineffective, and only branded drugs can be relied on to save lives. But Margie is today alive and home with her family because drugs costing less than P3,000 were given to her at that most critical time. One of these days I am going to ask a doctor how much it would have cost to treat a patient in Margie’s condition if she had been brought to a hospital here.

Thanks to the efforts of Maria Bugarin and Philippine Ambassador to India Frank Benedicto, and Indian Ambassador to Manila Rajeet Mitter, a visa was secured for Margie’s husband Chet, despite it being a long holiday weekend in Manila, who flew to India the very next day.

Since then, Chet has kept us informed of Margie’s condition on a daily basis, through an email group set up for the purpose. We have thus been witness to the trials that Margie and Chet have had to face, as well as the miracles and graces that have marked Margie’s road to recovery and Chet’s patient and loving care.

Last Sunday, Joven Ignacio and I, together with Holcim Philippines’ Jocelyn Perez, visited Margie at the Asian Hospital. Her room was festive with flowers and balloons – and food and family. Chet and their son Mark and daughters Patricia and Catherine, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, media colleagues… all rallying Margie on as she treads the slow but steady road back to full recovery.

I told Margie that as soon as she’s well, the nine of us will have a reunion, at which time she will finally tell us the story that we have been waiting all these months to hear.