The high cost of dying
Alva Marano-Alfonso wrote the following narrative. It details what the Marano family went through when their beloved mother, Josephine, passed away last November 16 at age 56. The body was held for ten hours, pending down-payment of P200k. The title of their home is being demanded by the Paranaque Doctors’ Hospital as collateral — until their bills are fully settled. Is this legal? Maybe. Is it moral? You be the judge.
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I am writing this not to take revenge on the hospital where my mother died, but out of concern for people who may want to take their sick loved ones there.
My mom has had breast cancer since year 2000. Last 2008 the cancer was diagnosed at Stage 3, and in early 2011, it was diagnosed at stage 4. One of the manifestations of cancer was ascites. Water was building up in her stomach so we needed to attach a drain to her in order to empty the water that accumulated. However, the drain would periodically clog up and had to be replaced every two or three months. Replacing it was a simple operation, and my mother would be out of the hospital after two or three days.
Because my mom opted not to undergo chemotherapy anymore, we just decided to have her go through bio-laser treatment. It’s an alternative treatment which seemed to be working well. In a matter of months, she could walk, stand, cook, and sometimes even go to the mall by herself. She was starting to recover and live her life as close to normal as possible.
On October 7 my mom went to her surgeon, Dr. Elmer Bondoc, at Asian Hospital. Her drain had clogged up two weeks before and it was time to replace it again. Because it was clogged up, it was already considered infectious. The doctor took a syringe of saline water and flushed the drain of my mom, effectively introducing infectious material directly in her stomach.
Immediately after the flush, my mom felt pain in her stomach. When she reached the elevator, the pain had become unbearable. Dr. Bondoc had left so my mother decided to go to his clinic in Paranaque Doctors Hospital.
By the time my mom got to the Emergency Room, her pain was excruciating. She could barely breathe or move, and her BP had dropped to 60 palpatory. She was transferred to the ICU where she was able to talk to Dr. Bondoc. My mother told us that she informed him prior to her checkup that her drain had been clogged for two weeks. The doctor insisted that my mom didn’t tell him. But whether he was told or not, isn’t it his duty to make sure that the patient is not exposed to infection? Is it not his job to ask questions so that his patient’s life is not at risk? The normal WBC level is between 5-10, and the highest point of my mom’s WBC level reached 29.5. For a cancer patient, this is deadly.
My mother struggled against septicemia until the first week of November. She received terrible service from the ICU nurses. Often they did not come when they were called. One time my mother had soiled her diapers but the nurses didn’t bother to check for two days. My mother who was in a lot of pain and discomfort was considered a difficult patient, and she was repeatedly ignored and treated rudely.
Because of this, we decided to transfer her to a private room set up as an ICU, with a private duty nurse. Her health started to improve. Slowly her infection level went down and she was beginning to sit down and walk with the aid of a walker. On the first week of November, her doctors allowed her go home and continue her antibiotics there.
But we needed to gather financial resources for my mom’s discharge and so she spent another week in the hospital. The doctors who attended to her monitored her hemoglobin and WBC count but did not inform us that her blood sugar should also be monitored periodically as it needed to be kept at a certain level.
On November 16, 2011, at 12:45 am, my mother suddenly had difficulty breathing. In minutes, blood started to ooze out of her mouth. The doctor who tried to revive her said that she was having hypoglycemic shock. She was pronounced dead at around 1:30 am, on the day that we were supposed to take her home.
To add insult to injury, the hospital put us through a terrible and humiliating ordeal before we were able to take my mother’s body for a proper funeral and burial. We were asked to provide collateral, postdated checks, OR/CR of vehicles or find a guarantor who will vouch for us.
Funeraria Paz arrived to take mama’s body but the hospital insisted that we needed to keep the body at Holy Trinity for “preservation” while we are negotiating the terms of the promissory note. They insisted that they weren’t holding my mom’s body, but repeatedly refused to release it. They advised us to keep the body at Holy Trinity for preservation in a fridge for a “minimal fee” of P4,000-5,000 per day.
I honestly believe that my mother died before her time due to the blatant neglect and the stress she endured in the ICU. I can only warn people about how their sick loved ones may suffer in this hospital. The life of my mom can never be replaced, and what we lost can never be given back. But exposing the cruelty our family experienced may prevent others from suffering the same ordeal.
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Mortality is inescapable. Eventually bereavement heals. But it is harder to attain closure when the death was possibly preventable and the circumstances seemingly coldhearted.
Dr. Bondoc was contacted for his side of the story. In the interest of fairness, equal space will be allotted for his and/or Paranaque Doctors Hospital’s response, if any.
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