MANILA, Philippines—Janet Lim-Napoles is expected to be confined for no less than 26 days at the Ospital ng Makati where she is scheduled to undergo surgery soon.
Dr. Perry Ishmael Peralta, the hospital’s medical director, said the operation to remove a cyst in Napoles’ uterus may happen this coming weekend.
Napoles, the alleged mastermind behind the P10-billion pork barrel scam, has been jailed for serious illegal detention charges filed by her cousin and former employee Benhur Luy.
“We are willing to do the surgery on the coming weekend if we arrive at that consensus,” Peralta said in a media briefing at the Ospital ng Makati on Napoles’ third day of hospital confinement.
He said two teams will attend to her medical needs and treatment—one composed of five doctors of the Ospital ng Makati and the other a team from St. Luke’s Medical Center tapped by Napoles.
Peralta said Napoles could be discharged after 26 days in the absence of any complications after surgery.
“That’s the minimum number of days for Napoles to recover at the hospital,” Peralta said.
For “humanitarian reasons,” Judge Elmo Alameda of the Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 150 allowed Napoles to undergo surgery but at the Ospital ng Makati instead of her hospital of choice, which is St. Luke’s Medical Center, Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.
Upon the request of Napoles’ camp, Alameda also gave the go-ahead to bring her own team of doctors to perform the surgery at the Ospital ng Makati.
“The principles that we are following here is the right of the patient to choose a doctor,” Peralta said.
Quick to defend
But Peralta was quick to defend the Ospital ng Makati from the insinuation that it is not capable of managing Napoles’ medical condition.
“Let me clarify that the Ospital ng Makati has the expertise, the equipment and the facility to handle the case of Mrs. Napoles,” he said.
Ospital ng Makati, owned and run by the Makati City government, is a tertiary hospital located in Barangay (village) Pembo in the city’s second district. It received its International Organization for Standardization (ISO) accreditation (ISO: 9001:2008) for its quality management system by the SGS Philippines in 2011.
Presently, its doctors are conducting diagnostic tests on Napoles to prepare her for the surgery.
Dr. Florentina Villanueva, the hospital’s resident obstetrician-gynecologist, said Napoles’ vital signs remain stable.
“(Two weeks ago), she was brought here for abdominal pain—that was her last complaint. When she was admitted, the minimal menstrual bleeding had stopped,” Villanueva said.
Asked if the city government hospital will shell out a cent for Napoles’ confinement, Peralta said, “Mrs. Napoles will pay for everything.”