Tale of woes in hospital shows insensitivity

On Aug. 2, 2013, when my wife was undergoing hemodialysis at the University of Perpetual Help Dalta Medical Center in Las Piñas, she had a cardiac arrest toward the end of the hemodialysis. She was revived and naturally was placed in the intensive care unit. Aware that the hospitalization would be quite expensive, we started to borrow from friends to help us cope.

On Aug. 5, 2013, we inquired from the billing section the running balance of our hospital expenses. Being a retiree, we likewise inquired how to seek financial help from the PCSO. We were told (by a certain Juliet) that in the meantime, we could pay only what we could afford, and the balance would be coming from the PCSO. If still not sufficient, then we had to pay whatever would still be uncovered. Fair enough.

On Aug. 8, 2013, at around 8:30 a.m., my wife unfortunately passed away. So we asked the hospital for clearance so the body could be taken to the funeral parlor. Lo and behold, we were told to settle the full amount first, including the professional fees, which I believe was not net of the senior citizen’s discount.

We asked the hospital to give us some time so we could raise the amount since we were told about the PCSO assistance. The one in charge (a certain Marissa) was not around. (We learned she was in a meeting.) We inquired who the next in line was and we were told that only “Miss Marissa” can decide on the matter. We waited until she came back, and it was already past 4 p.m., and we could no longer wait for her as we did not know when she was coming back, so we had to rush to our friends for the needed amount, so we could get the clearance for the wake of my wife. The amount raised was short to cover some of the professional fees.

Considering that my wife had been in and out of that same hospital about 10 times from July 2012 to August 2013 (this has drained our finances), we requested one of her attending doctors that we pay her the following day, but she denied our request.

We learned later that the PCSO does not give reimbursement assistance.

Had “Miss Marissa” been around or had she had an assistant ready to attend to us to make decisions, our stress, fatigue and grief would have been lessened, and we would not have relied on a false hope. I wish hospitals will have more responsible officers who can look after the needs of the patients and their relatives, and who would stand by what they say and not just for pure income.

—JORGE M. ILAGAN, [email protected]