Family forced to give up land title after hospital downgrades patient’s COVID-19 package

From almost P800,000, a hospital downgraded the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) package of a critical patient to around P300,000, forcing his family to use their property as collateral.

According to a report on “24 Oras,” the hospital bill of Al Francis Fernando reached around P1.3 million from three weeks of admission at the Ramos General Hospital due to COVID-19.

“Marami pa rin po kaming utang sa ospital. Nag-iwan lang po kami ng titulo [ng lupa],” Joy, Fernando’s wife, said.

[We still have a lot of debt. We just left a land title.]

In his medical abstract, doctors diagnosed Fernando with critical COVID-19-linked pneumonia which complication.

Based on this, his coverage under the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) COVID-19 package should have been P786,384.

However, his family said that from critical, the hospital downgraded Fernando’s case to severe, slashing the package he was entitled to down to P333,519.

“Hindi daw po nila kayang ibigay daw po ng PhilHealth sa ospital, ‘yung critical, kasi daw po, wala daw po silang ECMO machine,” Joy said.

(They said they PhilHealth can’t afford to give the hospital its highest package for critical patients, because the hospital did not have an ECMO machine.)

An extracorporeal membrane oxygenation or ECMO machine is a type of life support that helps patients with compromised heart and lung function to continue supplying adequate oxygen to the body.

Meanwhile, Dr. Mary Antonette Remone, PhilHealth acting senior manager for benefits, said that Fernando should still be able to avail of the critical COVID-19 package.

“Kasi depende rin sa capability ng ospital. Pero Level 2 at Level 3 na merong ICU ay pwede po ‘yung ano… yung critical na COVID,” she said.

(It also depends on the capability of the hospital but those with Level 2 and Level 3 ICU should be able to avail the critical COVID package.)

“Siguro po kailangan lang po namin linawin ‘yung policy para hindi na dumami ‘yung mga kagaya niyo na ganito ‘yung nagiging claim na instead na dapat mas malaki ‘yung coverage ay bumababa,” she added.

(Maybe we also need to clarify our policy so that cases like this won’t pile up in which instead of going up, the coverage goes down.)

Fernando’s appeal is currently being processed.

Meanwhile, the Ramos General Hospital declined to comment. -Joahna Lei Casilao/MDM, GMA News