Daughter of fallen Cainta health worker files raps vs hospital administrator

MANILA, Philippines — The daughter of a nurse who succumbed to the coronavirus disease has filed gross neglect of duty and conduct unbecoming of a public officer case against the hospital administrator of the Cainta Medical Hospital (CMH).

In a 20-page complaint filed on Thursday before the Office of the Ombudsman, Mary Joie Cruz said that Dr. Antonio Jayson Sierra should be held accountable for not ensuring that hospital staffers like her mother would be safe from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cruz said that their own investigations revealed that her late mother, CMH nurse Maria Theresa Cruz, sought for a COVID-19 test several times after being exposed to infected patients — all to no avail.

“In our own investigation, we discovered that Dr. Sierra showed a dismissive attitude towards my mother’s request for a COVID-19 test on all three occasions that she was exposed to a positive patient. On several occasions, Dr. Sierra also chastised and berated my mother when she expressed her concerns about the COVID-19 situation in CMH,” Cruz said in a statement.

“To add to this, she also had to purchase her own personal protective equipment (PPEs) because the hospital was unable to provide her with a PPE that fits her large frame. On August 13, I was also informed by DOH that the death of my mother, a frontliner, was not reported to the Epidemiology Bureau,” she added.

The ordeal encountered by Cruz and her mother went viral last August after she revealed in a Facebook post that her mom’s hazard pay was lower than what they expected — just around P7,000 which is way below their estimated P30,000 pay.

This has prompted the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to conduct a probe on the alleged pay cut, stressing that the Cainta local government is capable of giving out the P500 per day hazard pay for frontline health workers.

Cruz stressed that the filing of the case was not only meant to bring justice over the death of her mother, but also to help the plight of other health workers exposed to the dangers of COVID-19 in their workplaces.

According to Cruz, Sierra and hospital administrators’ obligation to ensure the safety and good health of patients extends to the hospital staff, as a sickly workforce would not be able to attend to patients.

“As a holder of a public office, Dr. Sierra has an obligation aside from ensuring that a good health care service is given to public constituents of Cainta but also to ensure that the health workers under his supervision are given fair treatment in the workplace, just compensation, special risk allowance and safe working conditions most especially in this time of the pandemic,” Cruz said.

“However, our mother’s story is not an isolated case. This is the reality of the public healthcare system in our country. Even before the Covid-19 crisis, the Philippine healthcare system has been backward and underdeveloped globally. A supposed health care system for all is corrupted and rotten due to prevailing nepotism, maltreatment, and corruption. The pandemic has been the greatest amplifier of long-existing issues,” she added. [ac]