Last Sunday a neighbour of our driver, Noel, tried to kill him with a filed down screwdriver.
Noel and his wife Tina had just popped into a friend’s place to check on their kids. They were walking back to their motorcycle when their friend’s next-door neighbour, a notorious and violent drunk, approached them. Apparently without provocation or warning he began stabbing both of them. Tina received a minor wound and rolled away from the attacker. Noel fought back but was still stabbed four times; the first from the back and the others in the front. The most severe wound, 5 cm deep, actually “touched’ his heart according to the doctors. His left lung was punctured.
Tina managed to separate the two men and, curiously, the attacker then seems to have left the scene, leaving Noel pouring blood and his weapon (which is now with the police). They piled into a tricycle which took them to the local “hospital”. This establishment said it could not treat them because it didn’t have an X-ray machine—what kind of hospital does not have an X-ray machine?—and advised them to go to one of the private hospitals in the city.
An ambulance began driving them to Medical City in Ortigas, but Noel figured it would be better to go to Makati Med, presumably because it is nearer to where we live. Unfortunately, the ambulance driver did not know where Makati Med was—what kind of an ambulance driver does not know that?—so, in between passing out from the pain of his stab wounds, Noel had to direct him. At one point in his frustration he even said he would even drive himself.
We received a call from a distraught Tina at about 7 in the evening and rushed down to the accident and emergency ward at Makati Med.
It’s been rather a grim week since then, but thankfully Noel and Tina are doing quite well. Tina was discharged last Tuesday and Noel on Thursday. They and their two kids are staying with us since the psycho who committed this crime returns to the neighbourhood intermittently. Until we can get him locked up, which I am determined to do, they will either remain with us or we will help them find them somewhere else to live.
Accident and emergency at Makati Med
An accident and emergency ward in an inner-city hospital is not designed to display the most positive aspects of a society. In fact it is the epicentre of urban stress (in the UK, for example, the ward is usually full of abusive drunks). Last Sunday, in addition to stab victims Noel and Tina, a young man was a carried in by two friends covered in blood from 3 gunshot wounds, one in the neck.
I’d like to be able to say we saw hardworking and dedicated professionals delivering high-quality care under difficult circumstances, but in truth I didn’t find the place too encouraging. Although the care that Noel and Tina received seemed reasonable, the atmosphere of the ward was extremely casual, with medical and auxiliary staff wandering around texting, joking, and chatting. In fact it was something like a bus station with blood.
Despite the clear sign on the door limiting guests to one per patient, there was no attempt to enforce this rule, either within the preliminary area or, incredibly, in the operating area, where visitors milled aimlessly about, getting in the way of medical staff and spreading their germs over the patients.
In addition to the general lassitude of the staff, there was also an indefinable feeling of sleaziness about the place. From the word go, I felt that patients were regarded as a lucrative source of income rather than as lives to be saved. OK, private medical care is a business, but as a foreign employer willing to foot the bill for his employee I could almost feel the rubbing of hands as soon as I entered the swing doors. Initially, I wondered whether I was being paranoid, but that was before I received the bill (see below).
Taguig police station
The violent attack on Noel and Tina happened in front of several witnesses. The attacker was well known to the police, having already accumulated a thick police blotter. The incident was even written up in a local paper. Yet here in the do-it-yourself Philippine state nobody is going to get off their fat asses unless prodded from above.
Frayed and Tina visited the nearest police station the day she was discharged. Their presence was clearly an inconvenience to the first policeman they met, who claimed that unless Noel was actually dead there was nothing they could do. Fortunately, they persevered and the next cop they spoke to was prepared to take Tina’s statement and was quite helpful. Of course this was after they told him that they had contacts who knew the Taguig mayor.
By this stage, the attacker was back in the neighbourhood (he had left for 24 hours after the attack) and could easily have been picked up. Alas, Manila’s finest could not move until they had additional corroborating evidence from Noel, who was still seriously ill in hospital. Nor is a sight of his ghastly wounds enough; they need a certificate from the hospital that he was indeed nearly stabbed to death.
We can do all that (Noel’s testimony and the hospital certificate), but guess what? The attacker has now disappeared again, no doubt because he found out from the station that a case was being filed against him. The police have told us that, once there is a warrant for his arrest, the attacker can be arrested anywhere in the country. That sounds great, but since the local police station has shown no interest in pursuing a criminal in Taguig, what can we expect from policemen in Iloilo, or Laoag, or anywhere else in this vast disorganized and uncomputerized country of 90 million people? Our only hope seems to be that he will be stupid enough to return, which actually seems a reasonable possibility.
Makati Med hospital bill
The realization that the attack on Noel and Tina was going to be an expensive affair dawned when Tina was discharged at a cost of P22,237.75 ($480). Unlike Noel’s, her wounds had been superficial. In fact beyond some cleaning up, a few short consultations, and two nights in a shared hospital room with Noel (cost P2,400 per person per night) she had received almost no treatment and few drugs.
I was therefore primed for a shock when we went to discharge Noel and I got it.
Noel received no complex surgery. He was stitched up in the accident and emergency room and after that he received numerous tests, including an endoscopy, CT scan, and a large number of X-rays.
Although the bill was nickel and dimed to the max (alcohol swab = P1.96), the lengthy computer printout is not presented in a way to aid understanding, which may or may not be the intent.
Nevertheless, here is the summary:
Room and board: 9,800
Pulmonary lab dept: 3,888
Pharmacy: 25,250
Laboratory: 5,300
Operating room: 27,395 (I think this is for the endoscopy)
CSS: 3,181.53 (your guess is as good as mine)
Radiology department: 8,035
CVDL: 6,590 (see above)
Emergency department: 13,374.13
Switchboard section: 65
Total: 122,738.16
We had just absorbed this when the accountant told us sweetly that this did not include the doctors’ fees, these could be picked up from the cashier.
The doctors, only one of whom we met (Dr Duran), were as follows.
Dr Gabriel: 2,200
Dr Duran: 20,000
Dr Cedeno: 25,000
Dr Sanchez: 3,500
Dr Gonda: 4,000
Dr Diaz: 7,500
Dr Dy: 4,500
Dr Tuazon: 16,800
Total: P83,500
The total bill for Noel’s treatment was P206,238.16 ($4,325), bringing the bill for Noel and Tina’s stay to P228,475.91 ($4,805).
In case you are wondering about insurance, I initially thought that Noel was insured with PhilHealth through Frayed’s company. In fact although the office had given Noel the forms he had not yet filled them in. So it goes.
Sadly for all of us, this story is not over by a long shot. I’ll add updates when there is something to report.
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