ANGELES CITY – The medical facility here ordered closed by Mayor Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin for alleged breach of protocol in bringing in Covid-19 patients from Quezon City but later ordered reopened by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases is in the news again.
This time, for allegedly asking the family of Covid-19 patients to pay some P2.5 million in exchange of the medical certificates of two persons and the urn holding the cremated remains of one of the elderly couple who died of the disease at the hospital in late March and early this month.
In a letter sent to media April 14, Geoffrey Santos, a son of the couple, said the Philippine Rehabilitation Institute (PRI) situated at Barangay Pampang here allegedly refused to release the urn of his mother and declined to issue medical certificates for his cousin Mark Kerby Ong, and family driver Francisco Robledo who were also admitted along with his parents on March 27.
Santos said his parents died on separate days after battling with the deadly disease while confined at the PRI. His cousin and the family driver were placed under tight watch under the care of the hospital for the same issue.
Santos said he appealed to PRI owner Dr. Pio Lim to consider Philippine Health Insurance coverage of his parents and the other two patients, citing government announcement that PhilHealth would cover the medical expenses of Covid-19 patients. His appeal however, he lamented, landed on deaf ears.
“On April 14, 2020, we asked the accounting department of PRI if they could give us patient copies of the billing, Official Receipt for the credit card payment and the cash deposit we made with Land Bank, death certificates of our parents, and the copy of their test results. In reply thereto, we received a phone call from Dr. Lim berating and angrily asking us why we are requesting for such documents and that we have to pay the medical bills immediately,” Santos said.
In a Viber conversation between Santos and Lim – photocopied in his letter: The hospital owner told Santos that the documents will be released once hospital bills are settled.
Santos attached the breakdown of hospital bills – in handwritten note purportedly from the hospital – for his parents Mr. and Mrs. Santos amounting to P1.244.449.13 while P526, 449.44 for Ong, and P519,000.22 for Robledo.
Last March 28, Mayor Lazatin ordered the shutdown of PRI operations after the medical facility management failed to inform the local government unit of Covid- 19 patients from Quezon City admitted in said hospital.
The Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Disease however had the PRI opened due to the rising numbers of persons under monitoring and persons under investigation.
While it was not directly determined if those subject Covid-19 patients were the Santos couple, the circumstances surrounding them and the Quezon City address of their son in his letter to media would indicate so.
Calls to the PRI for its side of the issue were not returned as of press time.
