Honors heaped on Jara, 4th PH doctor lost to Coronavirus

Raul Jara–Photo from Philippine Heart Association

MANILA, Philippines — Dr. Raul Jara, one of the country’s top cardiologists, lost his battle with COVID-19 early Tuesday, the latest in a growing list of casualties among front-liners in the fight against the pandemic, the Philippine Heart Association (PHA) and his family said.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the loss of one of the great pillars of cardiology, PHA past president Dr. Raul Diaz Jara,” PHA said on Tuesday.

“He was a great father, teacher, mentor, poet, author, singer, colleague, friend. One who has spent his life teaching,” the group said. “Philippine Cardiology will not be the same without you.”

Jara, 71, was the second cardiologist at Philippine Heart Center (PHC) to succumb to COVID-19 after Dr. Israel Bactol, an adult cardiology fellow, died last Saturday.

In addition to Jara and Bactol, two other doctors have already died due to the acute respiratory disease — Manila Doctors Hospital anesthesiologist Greg Macaset and San Juan de Dios Hospital medical oncologist Rose Pulido.

PHC has yet to disclose how both Jara and Bactol — who are among six PHC doctors found positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the pneumonia-like disease — had been infected.

Following the death on March 12 of an 88-year-old woman at PHC due to COVID-19, the hospital’s medical director, Dr. Joel Abanilla, said 39 staff members, including 19 nurses and seven doctors, who had interacted with the patient were placed on mandatory quarantine.

“Everyone she was in contact with, from attending nurses to technicians, all of them, we now label them as PUIs (persons under investigation),” Abanilla told dzMM a day later.

He did not identify any of the doctors affected.

Full disclosure needed

The Department of Health (DOH) officials later appealed to patients seeking consultation or treatment at hospitals to fully disclose the places they have visited and possible exposures.

Jara’s son, Paolo Cecilio, said he was told by a PHC doctor that his father died at 2:16 a.m. on Tuesday from acute respiratory syndrome caused by COVID-19, but the family did not immediately receive an official document on his father’s death.

In addition to his more than 40-year experience as a cardiolo­gist, PHA extolled Jara also as a mentor “who has spent his life teaching” and “who never got tired to impart knowledge and wisdom.”

Jara’s daughter, Dr. Ling Jara-Salva, said her father “dedicated his whole life to constant learning, teaching and molding future doctors.”

She said he was “a tower of strength and leadership” for the family, as well as a “beacon of hope for many in the midst of this crisis.”

Her father “knew the extensive battle he was facing and he kept on fighting,” she said.

“We were with him every step of the way and he will remain with us throughout,” she said in a statement.

Beyond call of duty

Salva expressed her family’s gratitude “to everyone who prayed for him and reached out during this difficult time.” She thanked the PHC doctors and nurses who took care of her father and even going “way and beyond their call of duty, as they treated him with compassion, like their own family.”

“His memory is not defined by how he died but how he lived,” she said. “Papa is in each one of us; he lives on in the hearts of his wife, five children and their spouses and ten grandchildren … We must be strong. We must live on. We must persevere. Go on with a steady heart.”

‘Underground’ patients

Dr. Guy Claudio, dean of the University of the Philippines’ College of Social Work and Community Development, said Jara was one of the doctors like her who treated patients referred to them by the underground movement fighting the Marcos dictatorship.

“Patients who needed care or were being hunted by the military were brought to me,” said Claudio, who acted as a referral doctor.

She said she and Jara and other doctors would “make fake names and records and course them through selected physicians who were willing to uphold their Hippocratic oath and, in so doing, break the Marcosian edict, that we should turn in such patients.”

“Those doctors in that underground referral network upheld their ethics to save lives and protect patients at considerable risk to themselves,” she said. “Dr. Jara was one of those doctors. He died as he had lived. A hero.”

Concern for doctors, nurses and hospital staff on the front-line in the fight against the pandemic has been raised by 11 hospitals in Metro Manila alarmed not only by the influx of PUIs but also by the growing number of their employees placed under quarantine after being exposed to a positive case.

Health care crash

In a joint statement, the hospitals warned of the “prospect of the health care delivery systems crashing down” and called on the DOH to designate COVID-19 hospitals that are “adequately equipped and invested upon by the government” so they could treat PUIs and confirmed cases.

The University of Santo Tomas Hospital in Manila reported that 500 of its staff, including doctors, have been placed under quarantine, the biggest number so far for a single hospital in Metro Manila.

The Medical City said it had 130 on quarantine and the PHC had 39.