Baby Dies After Being Turned Away By A Hospital in Cavite For Having No Money

Given that one of President Rody Duterte’s biggest advocacies mentioned in his SONA was to give Filipinos access to free or at least affordable health care, is it justifiable for a hospital to decline a patient due to not having any money, thereby leading to that patient’s death?

With this question, San Lorezo Ruiz Hospital in Naic, Cavite is currently under fire as a netizen posted the heartbreaking photos of her very young nephew lying dead in a coffin, apparently due to having been declined by nurses from the emergency room of San Lorenzo Ruiz Hospital around 3:00 PM of August 27th.

In her Facebook post, Eyah Ortsac detailed how the child’s mother, who happens to be the OP’s sister, rushed the child to San Lorezo Ruiz Hospital to request for admission as her son had been experiencing severe diarrhea and appeared to already be very dehydrated.

According to Eyah, a male nurse then approached her sister and asked whether she had any money to pay for the hospitalization, to which the worried mother said no. A female nurse then looked at the child, the netizen said, and said something that the mother was already fully aware of: that the child was already very pale and was severely dehydrated. The female nurse then instructed the mother to bring the child to the nearest public hospital in Trece Martires, while giving the panicked mother a referral note to the said hospital.

On the way to Trece, she noticed that the child was not breathing anymore. Hedid not manage to reach the public hospital alive.  

Eyah Ostrac lamented the fact that the nurses from San Lorenzo did not even try to apply first aid to the child before sending him and his mother on their way, leading to the eventual death of her nephew.

She then called out to whoever those nurses were who had been on duty at the emergency room of San Lorenzo Ruiz hospital at the time of the incident, demanding to know whether they were justified in the way they sent the patient away for having no initial money to pay for the hospital’s services.

She said that she is hoping that this message will reach them, imploring the said nurses to view all patients equally regardless if they have money or not.

Understandably, this ignited a fiery response among Facebook users across the country. The post was shared only last August 28, but as of this writing it has already gathered more than 72K comments, 67,135 shares and above 123K reactions.

Here are some of them:

As of now, there is yet no update as to whether or not the San Lorenzo Ruiz Hospital has reached out to the bereaved family.

Our sincere condolences from Pinoy Thinking. 

Source: Eyah Ortsac