poor man's dignity

Published

its in the news everyday!surgeons and OR staff celebrating for their ludicrous achievement....

1.invasion of privacy 2.patients rights.3. code of ethics etc (pls add some more), these are some of the issues that doctors and nurses (from now infamous Vicente sotto hospital in cebu) violated. that put the victim into a great emotional distress.my husband and i were so thawrted from the hospital's admin when we heared that the surgeons and others who were involved will more or less only have administrative case.

one of the priests even wnts to procecute the victim. the real issue here is the foolishness of the surgeons and nurses but not his sexual orientation!

downloading the video for the youtube only added insult to the injury but somehow it helped to nail down and pressure even more the staff of the VCMH. what i want personally...for them is to revocation of their licenses and not suspension from work.(i hope surgeons will not shift into nursing)

the nurses and doctors saved the poor man's health but they killed him from humiliation and stripping his dignity.

what can you say?

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Specializes in Neuro-Surgery, Med-Surg, Home Health.

I totally agree with you. As a long time RN here in San Francisco, California, I and my fellow nurses have through the years learned to be more sensitive to the feelings of the gay and lesbians in our hospital, and to those in our beautiful city as a whole. We have been educated not to be judgmental and treat all of our patients with respect and dignity. Patients' privacy is a right and legally protected here in the U.S., and rightfully so. How would those Philippine doctors and nurses would feel if there were put on that particular patient's shoes? Their behavior in the operating room of that hospital was unethical and unprofessional, even childish I think.

I am straight and a Catholic, but I believe in "live and let live". What happens inside the locked bedroom door of two consenting adults is NONE of our business. Period.

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Its so shameful for us Filipinos who are struggling to be know all over the world as respected professionals when some of us are trying to desecrate it by not respecting other peoples privacy. I don't like to be a critique on this but.. this is exactly why other foreigners are complaining about the way we filipinos behave. Its bad enough for the way our government officials have been stealing from us in every possible way... but this is rediculous.

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These are exactly the reasons why i really took care of myself in the last four years that I studied nursing in the Philippines. I didnt want to end up in one of the ORs because by clinical rotations, I've found out how patients are treated, especially when they're already on anesthesia. Actually, this behavior is pretty much norm (yes, disgusting). Doctors, nurses and students need a freakin reality check that they should be doing their work and not shooting videos for youtube, gossiping, and such!!!

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Specializes in Med-Surg,OPD ER,School/Clinic,Teaching.

From what I heard in a local news(tv), they said the hospital can't fire them because they are lacking in personnel.

What a lame excuse, considering there are hundreds of thousands who are seeking jobs here in the Philippines.

They shouldn't be tolerated. They should be punished to the maximum extent of law. Their names should be exposed for the world to know who are these people involved. That ought to bring shame to them.

However, there is nothing more we could do if our leaders wouldn't do anything.

We can only let others know that this is happening.

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If the government pulls their licenses,then the facility will have no choice but to fire them as one cannot practice without a license.

I am sure that if enough of you signed a petition, perhaps your lovely government officials will do something. You can also contact the newspapers where you are, as well as the reporters and have them do a story on it, even the newspapers in San Francisco, I am sure that they would be thrilled to get after a facility like this.

Instead of just complaining, do something pro-active.

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to john83

they cant remove those who were involved maybe because of their political status. i agree with suzzane once the PRC rovoked their licenses...hopefully, they have no excuse tto stay at the hospital.

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If the government cannot take away their licenses or whatever, maybe somebody should ban them from going overseas if they plan to... that should teach them not to make fun of others...

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All PNA members should heed Suzanne's call to contact the BON and get theses nurses and students on the carpet immediately!! Licenses indeed should be pulled if found participating in such an amoral and ethical violation of these Nurses oaths'. To delay this investigation by the BON will only add to the terrible publicity world wide for Filipino Nurses. Here are the comments by the BON today:

BoN to probe nurses, students in Cebu surgery scandal

MANILA, Philippines -- Nurses and nursing students linked to a medical scandal in a hospital in Cebu will be investigated, an official of the Professional Regulation Commission's Board of Nursing (BoN) told INQUIRER.net Monday.

The video, involving a surgical team of the Vicente Sotto Medical Center where they were seen mocking and disrespecting their patient as they were performing rectal surgery, was uploaded on YouTube.

The Department of Health is investigating the incident.

In an exchange of text messages, Marco Sto. Tomas, BoN member, said the board, which has "quasi-judicial authority," would hear any administrative case regarding the nurses for "possible violations to ethical and honorable conduct based on our Code of Ethics once appropriate complaints or results of investigation by appropriate bodies have been filed with the BoN."

Sto. Tomas, who is also the board's lead officer on ethico-moral-legal nursing practice and nursing legislation, said that as with the doctors involved in the case, the nurses -- if found guilty -- might have their licenses suspend or revoked.

He said that while the board might on its own -- motu propio -- initiate investigations through the National Bureau of Investigation, it would rather wait for the results of the investigation by the health department.

"Motu propio pwede mag-initiate ng investigation ang BoN through NBI [National Bureau of Investigation] pero lalo tatagal iyan kaya [The BoN through the NBI can initiate an investigation but that will take longer so it will be] better for us to wait for the DoH investigation results. Kung may makitang reason [if there is a reason] for us to do it ourselves, why not!" he said.

Sine the board doesn't have the results of the health department's investigation, Sto. Tomas said the body didn't have the names of the nurses and nursing students who participated in the surgery.

The nursing board official said he was disturbed by the report that nurses and nursing students participated in the "shameful incident."

"Maybe this is another wake-up call. This may be the outcome when we have the wrong motives in taking up nursing. Many want to avail of the dollar-earning opportunities from the nursing profession but not obtaining the real heart for moral service to humankind," he said.

A couple of years ago, the nursing profession was rocked by a leak in the licensure examinations,and in the process of earning international attention and various court cases.

http://www.asianjournal.com/?c=186&a=27458

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I just hope that the Head Surgeon gets the brunt of all possible charges, and including possible revocation of his license using the Captain of the Ship doctrine. There should be no way out for him since it is clearly Res Ipsa Liquitor (the thing speaks for itself).

If he were a responsible Head Surgeon then this shouldn't have happened at all in the first place.

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical.

Both parties are to blame, the man who is crazy enough to put a canister of his rectum. And the medical personnels who had a good laugh and video the procedure which is an invasion of privacy.

Now, about talking about dignity, think first before one put something behind his butt. The moment the person put that thing in his rectum he loses all the symphaty he could get from a "conservative" society that looks at gays as clowns.

As a nurse, I could not even think if I can do that much less get a camera to video the procedure without the patient's consent. Patient privacy is one of the most important things in caring for my patients. And I always respect a person's sexual orientation.

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Both parties are to blame, the man who is crazy enough to put a canister of his rectum. And the medical personnels who had a good laugh and video the procedure which is an invasion of privacy.

Now, about talking about dignity, think first before one put something behind his butt. The moment the person put that thing in his rectum he loses all the symphaty he could get from a "conservative" society that looks at gays as clowns.

I would have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. I've seen far more crazy things that patients have done with themselves and these patients rely upon doctors and other health care professionals to handle it with dignity. Doctors and other health personnels should not be laughing about the situation or ridiculing a patient while in the OR.

There were a lot of things that were violated here. Violation of physician-patient relationship, right of privacy, dishonorable/unethical conduct, etc...

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