Which emergency is exempt from ‘number coding’?

The Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is no longer exempting doctors from the “number coding” unless they are driving in response to a medical emergency.  That means they will be flagged down and made to explain the nature of their emergency—or get robbed (extorted) in the process?

The problem is, this half-baked and ill-conceived measure has failed to define what “emergency” qualifies for the exemption.  Is regularly going to their clinics to see patients in dire need of medical attention good enough? Or, does it have to be a “life-and-death” situation?

It was not the doctors who clogged up the traffic. It was—still is—the incompetence of MMDA traffic enforcers who cannot discipline jeepney, taxi, bus and tricycle drivers who have utterly no respect for traffic rules and regulations.

We just wish the next patients we fail to treat in our clinics because of this stupid scheme are not relatives of some pea-brained MMDA official.

DANICA MORTIZ, MD, [email protected]