Regional Director Dr. Jaime Bernadas of the Department of Health (right) talks with parents Ryan Noval and Jasmine Badocdoc about the next step of the inter-agency panel that meets today to start investigating the May 9 incident wherein their newborn son was taped in the mouth in a private maternity center. (CDN PHOTO/ MICHELLE PADAYHAG)
No one in the maternity hospital where baby Yohannes was born is taking responsibility for taping the infant’s mouth to quiet him.
“We state for the record that the nurses and midwife had nothing to do with the ‘taping’ of the mouth,” wrote lawyer Cornelio Mercado in the official response of the Cebu Puericulture and Maternity House Inc. to the Department of Health (DOH) yesterday.
Frustrated parents of the baby boy are preparing to take legal action over the May 9 incident.
“This is not what we expected. We gave them a week and they just came up with this,” said Jasmine Badocdoc, the mother.
“It’s very disappointing. We will have a meeting (today) with our lawyers. We were advised to refrain from giving comments,” she added.
The one-page letter was handed by DOH-7 Regional Director Dr. Jaime Bernadas to the parents at 2 p.m. yesterday.
As Badocdoc read the hospital’s response, she shook her head while the baby’s father Ryan Noval, bowed his head and wiped tears from his eyes.
With no hospital staff owning up to the incident, a panel of the DOH and three other government agencies will meet today to discuss how to proceed with a joint investigation.
Bernadas said the hospital management gave only a “letter of response” but what DOH is asking for is an “institutional incident report”, which is a chronological narration of events signed by the hospital’s medical director Dr. Raida Varona.
The incident report should have been submitted yesterday “pero wala ta’y mahimo, lisod sad kaayo kung dinalian.” (We can’t do anything. It’s difficult to rush this.)
In his letter, the hospital’s lawyer asked the DOH to conduct a joint investigation “in observance of due process and to ferret out the truth”
FOCUS ON COUPLE
After denying that hospital staff was involved, Mercado pointed attention to the complaining couple, their use of cellphone photos, and suggested that the couple knew more than what they were telling.
“We attach a blow up photograph as posted in the social webpage. Note: there is no pacifier; a long wide tape was used that dangerously joined both lips of the infant,” wrote the lawyer.
“We have asked resource persons on methods, angles, style, etc. on recording using the e-gadget, and the imminent author is the person who has the device and posted the result. We are informed that photos of other infants in the nursery were also recorded without permission.”
The baby-taping incident has drawn international attention after the outraged father posted photos of his newborn showing a strip of adhesive on the baby’s upper mouth and cheeks. The images and his account “nightmare @maternity hospital” went viral on the Internet.
Badocdoc, the mother, said she took the photos with her cellphone in the nursery where she went to breastfeed the baby on May 9. The nurse on duty told her that the tape was placed because the baby was “noisy” and they had to use a pacifier.
Other than the medical director’s terse denial to reporters that “There is no such thing as gagging (babies). There is no protocol for that,” the hospital has remained mostly silent on the accusation of alleged child abuse.
Only their lawyer is authorized to speak on the controversy.
Badocdoc when asked for a comment on the hospital’s making an issue of her taking additional photos of babies in the nursery said, “Our lawyers will take care of that.”
She confirmed that two private lawyers will attend today’s first inter-agency meeting at DOH-7 office.
Badocdoc said the family decided to take legal action after receiving the hospital’s official response. The parents first raised their grievance to the hospital’s information desk on May 9 and were advised to save the photos.
Asked who they would sue, she said, “We still have to discuss this with our lawyers.”
Before the couple went to the DOH yesterday, they went to the maternity hospital on B. Rodriguez Street to ask for an update.
In last week’s private meeting with directors of the hospital, the couple were assured that an in-house investigation would be made and sanctions would be taken against the staff involved.
Noval, who has lamented the “slow” progress, phoned the hospital at 10 a.m. yesterday morning and was put on hold for 25 minutes.
The person at the information desk, who was asked to find the chief nurse, or any official for an update, told him “Sorry sir, dili jud cla ma contact.” (Sorry sir, they can’t be contacted.)
An irked Noval expressed his dismay in Facebook, where he’s kept a running account of the controversy.
“You keep telling my family “we will contact you for an update” that has never happened and WE ARE WAITING for your feedback.”
Addressing the hospital lawyer, Noval said “DO YOUR JOB and I WILL DO MINE to protect my boy, and babies who may have fallen voiceless victims behind those nursery doors.”
“Please don’t butcher this incident like that bus shooting in Manila,” he added.
PROOF OF PACIFIERS
Dr. Philip Yray, a member of the DOH fact-finding committee, received the hospital’s report yesterday.
Cebu Daily News asked for a copy of the incident report, policies, procedures, and patient charts which were supposedly filed yesterday.
Yray declined, saying the documents are still under review and copies will be sent to their Central Office in Manila.
“As of now, we haven’t seen any violations. There should be proof for the allegations as well as the pacifiers included in the photos,” he said.
Yray said part of the protocol submitted by the hospital was the non-use of pacifiers for babies.
The DOH doesn’t allow the use of pacifiers in infants who are breast-feeding, one of the criteria for certification of a maternity facility as a “baby-mother-friendly hospital”.
The center risks non-renewal of its license if proven that the nursery staff was using a pacifier.
Dr. Yray said the DOH can make recommendations for changes after reviewing the case.
He observed that Cebu Puericulture Center and Maternity House Inc., is not undermanned and has enough doctors and nurses for a 75-bed capacity facility.
The maternity hospital has 36 permanent nurses and 5 relievers, more than the required 24 nurses for their size.
“Actually, they have met the standard number of hospital staff,” he said.
THREE SIDES
Bernadas, the DOH regional director, said the joint probe will hear the sides of three parties — the parents, on-duty staff and the hospital administrators.
But before the inquiry starts, they need the “institutional incident report” signed by the hospital chief, he said.
The inter-agency group will be headed by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR-7) and has as members the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD-7), DOH and Women and Children Protection of the Cebu City Police Offce (CCPO).
Grace Yana, a social worker of DSWD 7, earlier said they plan to invite the National Telecommunications (NTC) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI-7) to seek guidance on the photos posted and the camera used.
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