TBR 6, Here I come!

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It was my rotation at the local regional government hospital, and the first time I had a patient under my care die right before my eyes.

CC, single mom, early 20's, was one of the patients I inherited from the previous group of rotators at the department of medicine. Her mother, probably in her mid-forties, was quite frantic, not knowing where to get money for the labs and medications... To make a long story short, we called a code a few minutes before her case was presented by my resident for weekly ward rounds and then revived her. After the presentation, we called another code and the patient expired. A little girl lost her mother...a mother lost her daughter.

I felt awful afterwards as I talked to friends about it. But what could I do? And then I started to ask... Who's to Blame?

We can always say that it is the system, but behind the system, it all goes back persons. Graft and corruption is so rampant, one feels no need to raise eybrows when another anomaly comes to light. Values seem to get askewed along the way when millions of pesos are at stake.

Health is often times not a priority to people as well and since the cost of health care from trained professionals is astronomical to the everyday Filipino, people go to the oftentimes well-meaning local "mananambal" (translated-> healer) who can sometimes just complicate the matter before the case is finally brought before the doctor.

Then, there are the health care professionals who become so anesthesized to the human suffering around them... Overworked and underpayed, what incentives do they get to provide the best care to those entrusted to them? The call of greener pastures then comes and off they go to find more appreciation and fortune in foreign shores.

I could go on and on and on and on about all the other things that come into play.... In the end though, it starts with each one of us in the health care profession to find even small ways of bringing health care closer to everyone.