Actor Richard Yap revealed that he had spent half a million pesos for his hospitalization bill when he contracted COVID-19 last year.
He was one of the first celebrities to contract the virus and shared that it was one of the most terrifying chapters of his life.
In his recent vlog, Yap narrated his COVID-19 experience.
“I’m sharing this so that we can all learn something from my experience. This was a very difficult time in our lives but no one knew about it because we chose not to make it public at that time,” Yap said.
“Sometimes you will never know what someone is going through so let’s always choose to be kind. Much love to everyone who helped me through this, specially my family, the doctors, nurses, medical staff at Makati Medical Center and to everyone who sent their well wishes and prayers.”
Yap furthered that he was infected last year at the onset of the pandemic.
“March 14, I was still in Cebu and they said that the lockdown was going to happen on March 15. So all the flights were going to be cancelled and you couldn’t come back to Manila if you were stuck there,” he said.
“So I had to hurriedly get my ticket rebooked. I was okay at that time. Nothing was wrong with me. But when I came back after a day I was feeling bad already,” he continued. “I was coughing, I felt feverish. Ibang klaseng fever. It’s the kind your body is so hot na when you wake up pawis na pawis ka and hindi yung ordinary na konting pawis. Basa talaga pati yung kama mo basang basa.”
Yap said that he stayed three days in a hospital’s Emergency Room. “Du’n lang ako sa tabi, ako lang mag-isa. I didn’t want to attract attention also. I told my doctor I didn’t want any fanfare. I don’t want any special treatment,” he said.
After developing pneumonia, Yap needed to stay in the hospital for 10 days. “Philhealth only paid P10,000 out of his P500,000 bill. Inisip ko na lang siguro mas kailangan ng pera sa iba. Hopefully sa iba napunta at hindi sa ibang bulsa,” he said.
