Philippines - St. Luke’s choice

“Dr. Ona is not a bone specialist,” said GMA’s spokesperson Elena Bautista Horn in reaction to Dr. Enrique Ona’s report that GMA seems to be recuperating very well from a series of spinal surgery and therefore has no immediate need of medical treatment or consultation abroad. Ms. Horn revealed that her patron’s health is worsening, as indicated by GMA having to take 25 different kinds of medicines every day aside from the daily hormonal injections for her parathyroid glands.

She went on to say that GMA’s treatment depended ultimately on a bone biopsy. While she admitted that the bone biopsy can be done in the country, she claimed that there are no doctors in the country who can interpret the results.

I wish Ms. Horn had cited her credentials that qualify her to offer such assessment of GMA’s state of health and of the expertise of local doctors. I find it strange that she and lawyer Raul Lambino have been the ones making public statements about GMA’s medical condition when until just two months ago, an array of medical specialists at St. Luke’s led by Dr. Juliet Lopez-Cervantes, GMA’s attending physician, and Dr. Mario Ver, GMA’s own bone doctor, used to brief media people on GMA’s condition. Curiously, Dr. Ver has not made any public statement regarding GMA’s need to seek medical advice or treatment abroad for her spine problem.

Dr. Ona may not be a bone specialist, but he is an eminent doctor of medicine, an icon in his field of specialization. He was the executive director of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute, a position he held for 11 years until his designation as Health secretary. He has also been the president of the Transplantation Society of the Philippines since 1989. He has a license to practice medicine in the state of Massachusetts, USA. Such a medical professional is well qualified to assess GMA’s condition after he had visited her, studied the abstracts on her medical condition, and conferred with Dr. Ver and Dr. Cervantes.

It can be presumed that if Dr. Ver had told Dr. Ona that GMA needed to go abroad, the latter would have deferred to the former because the latter is GMA’s own surgeon and is a specialist on the disease GMA is afflicted with. In cases of contrasting opinions, medical practitioners bow to the opinion of the patient’s attending doctor, especially if he is a specialist on the disease of his patient and the dissenter is not.

It appears from newspaper reports that the idea of consulting specialists abroad came from GMA herself and not from her doctors. It should be recalled that in July, after a team of 10 doctors led by Dr. Ver had successfully placed titanium plates on GMA’s spine, Dr. Cervantes bragged that Filipinos need not go to the United States for such complicated and delicate procedures as they are successfully done in St. Luke’s. I infer from GMA’s present determination to seek medical help abroad that she no longer believes in the capability of Dr. Ver -- and for that matter Dr. Jose Raul Canlas, head of the Institute of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine of St. Luke’s -- to cure her of her ailment.

That is unfortunate for the image of St. Luke’s which claims to be the country’s premier hospital. In the not-too-distant past, a series of advertisements carried the line “You will not find any medical institution in the Philippines -- new or old -- better staffed and better equipped than St. Luke’s Medical Center.” At another time, St. Luke’s advertising story was that it will help the patient through the simplest to the most complex disorders and procedures, from diagnosis to treatment, therapy, and rehabilitation because of its “5 Pillars of Expertise.” These are: well-trained and highly skilled doctors, state-of-the-art technology, success rates, vigilance in improving patient safety and quality of care, and genuine passion for customer service excellence.

GMA asking permission to seek professional help outside the country virtually states that St. Luke’s doctors have not helped her get well. It also strongly suggests that the hospital’s “5 Pillars of Expertise” is nothing but advertising hype. The inevitable impression GMA’s initiative leaves is that St. Luke’s, the self-styled premier hospital of the country, failed to relieve the former president of the country of her ailment. That impression brings down the country’s medical tourism program as well. Ironically, medical tourism is one of the major programs of the GMA administration.

Dr. Ver has to take a stand on the issue of whether GMA needs to go abroad for medical consultation. If he endorses the foreign trip, then the Ad Standard Council should serve notice to the advertising agency of St. Luke’s and whoever in St. Luke’s is in charge of its advertising to desist from placing those expensive full-page full-color ads again or from using the same storyline. The council is empowered by the advertising industry to review all broadcast, print, outdoor, and cinema advertising and to order the pullout from media unsubstantiated advertising claims.

St. Luke’s reputation can be preserved, though, if Dr. Ver issues a public statement that says that GMA’s condition is improving and therefore she has no valid reason for seeking medical help abroad, not at this time anyway. He has to be the one to say it. Eminent orthopedists or bone doctors affiliated with other hospitals saying that effective management of GMA’s medical condition is available in the country will only put to question St. Luke’s claim to be the country’s premier hospital.

Dr. Cervantes can add that loss of weight is expected of people who undergo complex surgeries and who take as many as 25 different kinds of medicine every day. She can say further that such heavy intake of medicine coupled with worries about colossal court cases inexorably results in loss of appetite. That probably explains why she has not been seen lately in Matutina Restaurant in Bonoan Beach where she loves to feast on sea food.

Such pronouncements by St. Luke’s doctors can easily draw the fury of the mercurial and vindictive GMA. The choice is St. Luke’s -- GMA’s enmity or the hospital’s good reputation.

Oscar P. Lagman, Jr.

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