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, in the process earning international attention and various court cases.