A daughter of a person under investigation for coronavirus disease or COVID-19 has shared on social media how her father died while waiting outside the hospital tent at the Lung Center of the Philippines.
Rachelle Serrano, daughter of Liwanag Serrano Jr. told GMA News that her father waited for at least 11 hours outside the hospital and when he was finally admitted, her father died hours after.
“We are a third world country, I get it. We trust in God’s will, but it pains us how my Dad had to be at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Rachelle said in an interview.
Rachelle also paid a tribute to her father on her Facebook account and how he had suffered due to lack of proper care.
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“I refuse for you to be remembered as a statistic. I never thought you will be a casualty of war, a battle we lost without a FIGHT,” she wrote.
Rachelle said that they tried calling a number of hospitals in Quezon City, but all of them are now rejecting suspected COVID-19 patients.
“All the hospitals pointed us to Lung Center. We called and they said to come but expect a long wait. That long wait was 11 hours.,” she said.
“Eleven hours my Dad was out in the heat sitting in a wheelchair under a triage tent with several coughing PUI’s around him. My youngest brother never left my father’s side,” she added.
Rachelle however said that she had no ill feelings on the health workers because she knew that they are doing the best that they can.
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Lung Center of the Philippines spokesperson Dr Norberto Francisco also told GMA News that the hospital became extremely busy at that time managing at least 80 patients.
“Yung araw na ‘yun, napaka-busy. In 24 hours, nagkaroon kami ng 80 consult doon sa aming emergency room triage. Hindi biro ang 80. Lahat ‘yun iimbestigahan,” Francisco said.
“Doon sa ipapasok, ihahanap namin ng kuwarto isa-isa ‘yan,” he added.
The Lung Center said that they also had a hard time assigning more health personnel because most of their workers were under quarantine over their exposure to COVID-19 patients.
The hospital explained that when a room becomes vacant, they have to disinfect it first and have their engineering team to check its air passage that should be in negative pressure to avoid virus transmission.
“Bless Lung Center. They can only do so much. We can tell they are so overwhelmed, understaffed and tired just tired. There were so much death around. I never thought in less than 24 hours, my Dad will pass. He died without family beside him,” Rachelle added.
The next hurdle for her family was finding a funeral parlor who would take care of her father’s remains. When they found one, the funeral home refused to open the body bag of her father.
Rachelle said that her father was tested for COVID-19 last week and was told that it will take two weeks for the results.
“To all the families that lost, losing and will lose a loved one during this pandemic, they will never be just a number. They are fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, grandfathers and grandmothers. Our healthcare workers are in a battlefield working their best with little resources they have. Let us all trust God’s will and pray for the end of this pandemic as well as protection to all,” she added.
