EDITORIAL - For a lost leg, heads must roll

From Toledo City, Cebu, comes the sad news that a boy had to have part of his left leg amputated after a wound got infected.

As mentioned in our sister publication BANAT News, the father of the six-year-old boy said it all started when the boy got cut by broken glass while he was playing last February 4.

He took his son to a government hospital in the same city for treatment, but instead of a doctor attending to the boy, it was reportedly a nurse attendant who stitched the wound closed.

But instead of healing, the wound darkened and worsened. Two days later, when he took his son to another hospital, this time in Talisay City, a doctor said the lower part of the boy’s leg had to be removed as the infection had spread.

The news that a boy had to lose part of a leg is tragic enough already, but what makes it sadder is that he didn’t have to lose it. Based on their accounts the wound didn’t appear to be that threatening when brought to the first hospital.

Now the boy’s father is turning to the Department of Health to get answers, and the department has sent a letter to the Toledo City hospital in question regarding the incident.

At this point we aren’t sure who committed lapses that led to this drastic measure, so we won’t name names or point fingers. But it seems certain that someone didn’t do what he or she was supposed to do, or didn’t do it correctly, for this to have happened.

Was the wound not disinfected properly before it was stitched? Or did it get infected more during the stitching process? Did the hospital not have enough qualified personnel? Another news source even said the nurse attendant reportedly didn’t have a license.

This is definitely not the boy’s fault. Children play; that’s what they are meant to do. But because someone didn’t do what he or she had to do, this boy will have to spend the rest of his life with a disability.

For a lost leg, heads must roll. We mean this figuratively, of course. Enough body parts have been cut off already.