The past week has been quite an ordeal for my family. It started with our 6 year old daughter catching a fever last saturday. After 24 hours it seemed like her fever couldn’t be managed so I took her to the nearest hospital, Southern Luzon Hospital in Sta. Rosa, Laguna. They did a CBC, urinalysis and looked at her throat. They gave her a suppository to bring the fever down. She was then diagnosed with Tonsilo-Pharyngitis. I was then asked to settle the bill so I could take her home. When I came back from the cashier, I found that she convulsed. Only then did they have an x-ray and find that she had pneumonia and had to be admitted. My wife followed to the hospital and stayed with her.
After 3 days of treatment, my daughter’s fever still wasn’t managed. The doctor was considering Meningo-coccemia. He said this because of the convulsions that my daughter experienced and because the 3rd generation anti-biotic he employed didn’t work. He mentioned this to Tes and said he was going to have spinal fluid extracted. With this development, my wife was in despair! We then decided to call our old pedia Dr. Manuel Almelor. That night, we transferred to his lying-in clinic in Las Pinas. Aemu was then given Cefuroxime and started recovering after 12 hours. After another 3 days she was sent home.
So what went wrong? Why would a simple lying-in clinic be more effective treating pneumonia compared to a full service tertiary hospital? First it was the doctor. Dr Almelor was aggressive in his treatment. He would not hesitate to give the maximum dose of a drug if it was necessary. His extensive experience in goverment hospitals, overrun by infectious disease cases led to a well developed “clinical eye”. When he saw my son who was with us that night, he also had him admitted because of the external symptoms of pneumonia he saw as confirmed by his stethoscope observation. In the hospital, they rarely used the steth for observations.
The second thing was the drugs. Dr Almelor used imported drugs that had a higher probability of success. A lot of hospitals use local generic drugs to reduce cost or increase mark-up. No matter what they say, these drugs have a reduced potency. Just imagine how many more people will suffer from poor drug quality because of the cheaper medicines act.
Other notable things were about Southern Luzon Hospital:
1.) an inexperienced nursing staff.
2.)Tes was prescribed anti-biotics since she also got pneumonia. Only to find later that she was prescribed a drug for Urinary Tract Infection.
3.) 3 days cost us PHP 24,990.75 vs PHP 11,000++ at Dr. Almelor’s
At the end of this ordeal my wife lost a lot of poundage from the stress and the sickness. It definitely beat most weight loss pills.
My understanding is that Southern Luzon Hospital is a sister facility of Calamba Doctor’s Hospital. My friend related his experience in the latter facility where he was misdiagnosed with a failing kidney. He was prescribed to go for dialysis. This depressed him for weeks. After seeking a second opinion, he finds out that he only had high uric acid!
If you value your health and your life. Stay away from these hospitals! If you live in Sta. Rosa Laguna, go to New Sinai or Sta. Rosa Doctors. If you need a good pedia or family doctor go to Dr. Manuel Almelor tel no. (02) 8735097.
