Hospital refuses to examine Zaldy Ampatuan due to security risks

MANILA, Philippines – A Quezon City court has allowed former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao governor Zaldy Ampatuan to undergo a medical check-up outside of detention, but the hospital supposed to treat him has refused to admit him even as an outpatient because of security risks.

In a July 15 order, Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of Regional Trial Court Branch 221 directed the accused to be brought to the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Global City as an out-patient.

The Quezon City Jail Annex warden, Senior Insp. Edgar Camus, was supposed to bring Ampatuan to the SLMC only as an out-patient after the court did not allow Ampatuan’s request for confinement.

But in a manifestation filed on Monday, Ampatuan’s lawyer Redemberto Villanueva told the court that the hospital management declined to treat his client even as an outpatient.

“Arrangements were made for the same with the said hospital. However, due to recent exposes (of Zaldy), St. Luke’s Global City has refused to accept him, as outpatient accused due to security risks,” the manifestation read.

The former ARMM governor ended up not being examined.

Villanueva said the SLMC invoked its right “as a private hospital to do so” on the basis of “security risks.”

The request for hospitalization came after Chief Insp. Agnes Aglipay of the Health Service Unit of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology in Metro Manila recommended for Ampatuan to be treated in a “hospital setting.”

Doctors had discovered that Zaldy “has coronary heart disease and poorly controlled diabetes mellitus that needs immediate evaluation and prompt treatment.”

Among the tests that Aglipay said Zaldy needed to undergo were: 12-lead ECG, two-dimensional echocardiography; peripheral arterial and venous duplex scan; endothelial function test; 24-hour Holter monitoring; carotid duplex scan; complete blood chemistry which includes high sensitivity C-reactive protein and myocardial perfusion imaging.

Ampatuan had set off a series of exposés in the past week, ranging from what he knew about the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao massacre to election fraud in the 2004 and 2007 elections.

He is currently held in a separate cell from his fellow accused, which includes his own father Andal Sr. and brother Andal Jr. inside the QCJA due to health reasons.

Zaldy has not yet been arraigned for his alleged participation in the massacre, where 57 people, including 31 media workers were killed. The remains of a 58th victim, another media worker, remain missing to this day.