Manila — Health authorities must act quickly and decisively on Cebu's controversial rectal surgery video scandal or Teri Hatcher may get her sweet revenge, a medical sector non-government organization said yesterday."The world's impression would be Teri Hatcher is right, and that Filipino hospital regulations are lax and doctors here could practically get away with anything," Dr. Gene Nisperos, secretary-general of the Quezon City-based Health Alliance for Democracy, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a phone interview. Nisperos was referring to a remark made in the popular Hollywood sitcom "Desperate Housewives" by character Susan Mayer, played by Hatcher, which belittled Filipino doctors. In the show's 4th season premier, shown in the United States on Sept. 30, 2007, Mayer visited the office of Dr. Adam Mayfair, played by Nathan Fillion, and was visibly terrified when the doctor told her that "menopause" seemed to open a Pandora's Box for the age-conscious middle-aged woman. "They hear ageing, brittle bones, loss of sexual drive..." said the doctor who was cut midway from his explanation by an agitated Mayer. "Before we go any further, can I check those diplomas? 'Coz, I just want to make sure they're not from some med school in the Philippines," she said while searching for the Mayfair credentials. Hatcher's remark displeased Filipino viewers both here and abroad. Health workers' groups in in the United States launched signature-gathering petitions and the Philippine consul in Los Angeles even sent a letter to the producer of the show, telling them that the remark was out of taste. Nisperos said the incident at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center was "an isolated case" and did not reflect the attitude of all Filipino doctors. In a video clip circulated through cellphones and uploaded on YouTube, doctors and nurses of the VSMMC were seen laughing while extracting a perfume canister that got stuck in the rectum of a male patient.
Nisperos urged the Department of Health to be decisive in dealing with the case, and show to the world that the incident would never happen again. Nisperos said one important lesson that could be gleaned from the incident was the availability of mechanisms for victims of medical malpractice to file complaints. "It is now up to the government to show that it has a monitoring system in place to safeguard against such kinds of malpractice. It's not good for health authorities to be just going after offenders all the time and not doing something to prevent incidents like this from happening," he added. Asked who should be directly held responsible for the incident, Nisperos recalled that the medical profession had a so-called "captain of the ship principle," which placed the ultimate responsibility for whatever happened to the patient to the highest ranking medical person present in an operation or treatment session. Nisperos identified three "breaches" committed by the medical team during the incident, namely, surgery procedures, patient confidentiality and medical personnel behavior. Meanwhile, a travel agent told the Inquirer that any prolonged investigation of the incident might affect the country's medical tourism program, which has been aiming to attract foreigners to avail of the cheap but high-quality medical services here. "What would we tell foreign tourists now? That our doctors are not only good but also fun-loving?" he said in jest. Inquirer | 
