ROSALIA Villones, 38, was taken to the Rizal Provincial Hospital in Morong town experiencing labor pains at 9 p.m. of January 4.

Her husband, Oscar, 40, a farmer, and daughters Maureen and Rose Ann were with her.

Rosalia and Oscar were expecting their fourth child.

Doctors at the provincial government-run hospital didn?t accept Rosalia, saying the hospital didn?t have the facilities to treat her for complications that might arise from child birth.

Rosalia was having an asthma attack and was diagnosed with pneumonia.

The doctors at the hospital told Oscar to take his wife to the Rizal Medical Center (RMC) in Pasig City, about one and a half hours away.

The hospital has two ambulances but doctors didn?t see it fit for Rosalia, who was wearing tattered clothes, to be brought to another hospital in an ambulance.

So poor Oscar took his wife to the RMC on a jeepney that he hired.

When they reached the RMC, they were told Rosalia could not be accommodated as the hospital?s delivery room was being renovated.

So, Oscar took Rosalia back to the Rizal Provincial Hospital.

Again, the hospital rejected Rosalia for the same reason: It didn?t have the facilities to treat her for her asthma attack and pneumonia.

Rosalia gave birth at her nipa hut at the foot of a mountain in Cardona, Rizal province.

She died an hour later, or seven hours after she was first taken to the Rizal Provincial Hospital.

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Had Rosalia been taken by an ambulance to the RMC accompanied by doctors from the Rizal Provincial Hospital she would still be alive today.

RMC doctors would have taken her in?even if the delivery room was under repair?since she was with doctors from another government hospital.

But Rosalia was a nobody, like a disposable syringe, so there was no attempt to attend to her.

If the Department of Health would like to investigate, here are the names of the doctors at Rizal Provincial Hospital who should have attended to Rosalia but did not:

Dr. Virgilio Zafra, chief of hospital; Dr. Viola Villegas, department head, obstetrics and gynecology; Dr. Maricar Bautista, OB-Gyne; Dr. Manilyn Angeles, OB-Gyne.

Rizal Gov. Casimiro Ynares III has already acted on the complaint that my program, ?Isumbong mo kay Tulfo? (Radyo Inquirer-dzIQ on 990 AM), has lodged with him on behalf of Rosalia?s bereaved husband and very young daughters.

Ynares, himself a doctor of medicine, promised an impartial investigation.

But the investigation should go beyond Governor Ynares since what happened at the Rizal Provincial Hospital is happening in all other government hospitals throughout the country.

Most doctors in government-run hospitals treat poor patients, whom they have sworn to treat, like trash.

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I was amused when I read the ?mission? and ?vision? statements on the plaque at the lobby of the Rizal Provincial Hospital in Morong.

The plaque reads:

?MISSION

?It shall provide optimum quality health care (highlighting mine?RT) to the indigent patients of the Province of Rizal. It shall recruit more practitioners in the different fields of specialization to make available a variety of services to indigent patients of the Province of Rizal. It shall promote and support the Department of Health?s objectives.

?VISION

?The Rizal Provincial Hospital shall be the leading medical institution providing preventive and curative services to the indigent patients of the Province of Rizal.?