“How do we comfort the grieving families who are victims of a system that has failed them?”
This is the question in Vice President Leni Robredo’s mind as she recalled how a COVID-19 positive patient who has been waiting for the availability of an oxygen tank died recently because of an overwhelmed health care system that could no longer accommodate the surge in severe cases.
“It has been heartbreak after heartbreak of people dying without having been given a fighting chance because of a system that is failing us,” Robredo, who is on self-isolation after being exposed to COVID-19-stricken individual, said in a Facebook post on Sunday night, April 18.
The vice president recalled that a staff from her office received a message from a friend asking for help for a senior citizen who tested positive for COVID-19.
According to the message that Robredo screencapped and shared on Facebook, the patient was in a coma status in a tent IATF an undisclosed hospital because of COVID-19 infection.
“The family have (sic) called almost all hospital (sic) in NCR but not even one could accept her for proper treatment. They also called One Hospital Command but to no avail,” the message, which was addressed to Robredo, read.
“Am just hoping that someone out there with the guidance from the Lord Jesus Christ could help the very sick woman and her family to be accepted in a hospital at least not to die just like that.”
The Office of the Vice President (OVP) referred the patient to the One Hospital Command Center (OHCC) but when they try to reach the patient, she could no longer be contacted.
After a while, one of the vice president’s staff, messaged on their group thread that the patient already “expired.”
“Thanks for your effort, but sad to say the woman died last night in the tent. My tears fell and my heart is bleeding for her and the helpless family. She was denied in all the hospitals they went to. My daughter is also very sad bec. (sic) she was not able to help her friend. We’re helpless, too,” the message, which was sent by the mother of the patient’s daughter’s friend, read.
Robredo herself mans her office’s Bayanihan E-Konsulta teleconsult service that’s accessible via free data for COVID-19 and non-COVID patients who live in the National Capital Region Plus (NCR Plus) bubble, which includes the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Bulacan, and Rizal.
The teleconsult service, powered by the OVP’s volunteer doctors and telephone operators, was designed only to provide medical advice to outpatient cases.
And yet, Robredo said they “receive SOS messages, of frantic family members asking for help because they couldn’t find a hospital that can accommodate their sick who are already toxic and in need of immediate help.”
Although they remind patients that they do not have to capacity to deal with emergencies and they have to refer them to the government’s OHCC, which has also been helpful, the vice president said they try their best to address the gaps.
“The other night, we had to bring an oxygen tank to a stroke patient who was at a government hospital lobby after being rejected by so many hospitals already and needed oxygen because her O2 (oxygen) sat (saturation) was already very low (P.S. Was informed just now that patient already expired,” Robredo shared with a sad face emoticon.
The “entire healthcare system in the NCR bubble is already overwhelmed,” she added, noting that this particular patient died in a hospital tent while waiting to be admitted.
“This is not the first time it happened in the recent past. But each time, the blow is still difficult to fathom,” Robredo said.
The vice president’s story of a patient dying in a hospital tent is not a first. Social media is awashed with posts of families who cannot find a hospital to accommodate their loved ones.