PGH rescue unit for kids needs help fast
By Edson C. Tandoc Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:09:00 01/06/2009
Filed Under: Hospitals and Clinics, Health treatment, Children
MANILA, Philippines—Up until last month, 5-year-old Reny Joy Delaquinon had endured ridicule from other children in the neighborhood. Too ashamed to go out, she grappled with the question: Why do I look so different?
Today, the girl born with an abnormal skull can finally face the world and make it her one big playground, thanks to generous donors and the low-cost services offered by a special surgery unit of the century-old Philippine General Hospital (PGH).
But after saving Reny Joy and 167 other kids from a lifetime of misery, the PGH Pediatric Neurosurgical Craniofacial Unit is now the one that needs rescuing.
After only nine months in operation, the unit “will be temporarily closed this month” for lack of funds to maintain its lean staff, according to the unit’s chief proponent, Dr. Gap Legaspi.
The surgeon set up the unit at the state-run PGH with the help of private donors in April 2008. By Legaspi’s reckoning, it’s the only neurosurgical unit in the country that caters to children with congenital abnormalities, and which performs otherwise costly procedures at the most affordable rates.
1,500 operations
In the years prior to the unit’s establishment, children had to fall in line or give way to other PGH patients who urgently needed an operation. The operating rooms were always busy since the hospital performed an average of 1,500 operations every year, Legaspi recalled.
“Something needed to be done,” Legaspi told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an interview late last month.
His plan of putting up a surgery unit prioritizing child patients gained momentum thanks to a series of fortunate events, starting with the relocation of the hospital’s ophthalmology department, which left at least one room vacant.
At that point, though, all he had was a spare room bereft of both the needed equipment and a regular staff. “The PGH, as much as it was supportive of the concept, didn’t have the money,” Legaspi said.
Legaspi then turned to private donors—who did not disappoint.
Help pouring in
The Rotary Club of San Juan del Monte helped refurbish the room in 2006. Sen. Pia Cayetano, through her Gabriel Symphony Foundation (established in memory of her son who died of congenital abnormalities), donated an amount equivalent to one year’s salary of the foundation’s three employees.
Support from other PGH units also poured in.
The Operating Room Management Team handed over whatever available tables and instruments it could find. The Department of Anesthesia assigned an anesthesia machine for the pediatric patients. The Section of Pediatric Neurology allotted special beds.
Dr. Bernard Tansipek of the Section of Plastic Surgery also linked the unit with the Smile Train Craniofacial Foundation, which eventually donated funds for craniofacial patients.
Other surgeons willingly brought their own sets of sophisticated instruments when called to operate on the children.
Research center
The unit also served as an excellent ground for research. “Since the procedures are concentrated in one room, it is easier to gather data and these can be the basis for technological improvement,” Legaspi explained.
Research done here can help surgeons improve their technique and find ways to minimize infections. “It can be a training center not just for the country but also for the (Southeast Asian) region,” he said.
Legaspi said most children born with malformations came from poor families who could not afford multiple surgeries and rehabilitation procedures.
Since the defects are not life threatening, hard-up parents tend to defer the child’s treatment.
Reny Joy, for example, was born with an abnormality in her skull. A part of her brain had filled a big sac bulging between her eyes. Apart from the obvious deformity, the bulge hindered her vision.
“We are very happy. We can now see her face clearly,” Reny Joy’s mother Evelyn said as she attended to her daughter, by then already recovering at one of the PGH wards after going under the knife on Dec. 18 last year.
Happy new year
“This is going to be a truly happy new year for us,” beamed Evelyn, who had also texted the good news to her husband and two sons back home in Zamboanga Del Sur.
Reny Joy suffered from encephalocoeles, Legaspi explained.
Other inborn deformities that were treated at the unit include hydrocephalus (where fluid accumulates in the brain), myelocoeles (where the spinal cord protrudes and forms a mass at the back), and craniosynostosis (which causes deformities in the face).
In private hospitals, Reny Joy’s operation, which also required plastic surgery, would cost about P300,000. At the PGH unit, the operation only cost between P15,000 and P20,000, Legaspi said.
The girl’s surgery was shouldered by King Jesus Fellowship, a religious group based in her home province. Its pastor also paid for mother and daughter’s flight to Manila and gave money for Reny Joy’s medicines.
Harshest people
If not corrected, inborn deformities can lead to complications affecting the brain, hampering the intellect and other body functions. The sac that grew on Reny Joy’s face, for example, could be prone to infection if accidentally punctured.
“And for a growing child, such conditions can be traumatic, with all the insults and teases,” Legaspi said. “The harshest people around children with deformities are their fellow children themselves.”
Evelyn agreed: “(Reny Joy’s) playmates would tease her but she would just keep quiet. I was the one being hurt because of what was happening to her.”
But while the Delaquinons and the others before them may now feel relieved, the doctor whose project helped put a smile back on many a child’s face has a bit of sad news.
“We will be temporarily closed this month because we have to supplement our finances,” Legaspi reported. “The support we got was only enough for the salary of two nurses and a utility worker for one year.”
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