MULTIPLICATIONS, DIVISIONS, AND SUBTRACTIONS
The top health stories of 2004 saw killer disease proliferating, twins separating--and nurses disappearing
By Jin Paul S. de Guzman
Assocaite Editor
2004 had its share of health-related controversies, but none of them received the near-hysterical attention given to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. Nevertheless, they caused waves large enough to result in anxiety, sickness, or even death.
Some of them were shocking precisely because they seemed unprecedented. But the others arrive almost regularly every year, as if following a schedule.
There is the boom in cases of gastroenteritis, malaria, and dengue during the rainy season. There are the never-ending debates on controlling the national population. Sure, these are very serious issues, but people are not surprised to see
them in the news anymore.
So will 2005 see these happening again?
The death of Dr. Death
Called "Dr. Death," family physician Harold Shipman was found hanging in his cell in England's Wakefield prison on January 13.
Shipman, convicted in 2000 for the systematic murder of 15 patients, was proved in a 2002 report to have actually killed 215 people until 1998, with 45 other deaths linked to him.
The Times of London reported in 2002 that Shipman had started the series of murders in March 1975 with a 70-year-old woman. The year in which he committed the most number of murders is 1997, with 37 victims.
The 2,000-page Shipman Inquiry Report failed to definitively establish the motive behind the murders, which usually involved the injection of a lethal dose of diamorphine. Said Dame Janet Smith, a High Court judge who led the investigation: "If one defines motive as a rational or conscious explanation for the decision to commit a crime, I think Shipman's crimes were without motive."
Shipman, until his death at age 57, refused to confess to any of the deaths attributed to him.
Carl and Clarence separate...
Conjoined twins Carl and Clarence Aguirre, two years old, were successfully separated in a 17-hour marathon surgery on August 4 and 5 in New York's Montfiore Medical Center.
Born with the tops of their heads joined, the twins shared a number of major blood vessels but had separate brains.
Accompanied by their mother Arlene in October 2003, the twins underwent four major operations to cut their blood vessels. It had been initially found that much of the work was done by the vessels near Clarence's brain, but Carl's "dormant" blood vessels started working after the operations.
No major complications were noted after the surgery. Pediatric neurosurgeon James Goodrich, who led the surgery, said: "I was absolutely astonished not to see any of the problems we had expected, like swelling of the brain."
The twins were flown back to their hometown, Silay City, in September, and are recovering well. A skull-reconstruction surgery is scheduled at a later date.
...while Sanofi and Aventis unite
The controversial bid of French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Synthélabo to take over French-German rival Aventis came through on August 22, when Sanofi formally announced the formation of Sanofi-Aventis. The move has effectively made Sanofi-Aventis Europe's largest pharmaceutical company, and the world's third largest, after Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline.
Although talks about a possible merger had been going around since late 2003, Sanofi announced on January 26, 2004 its US$58.9-billion bid for Aventis.
At the time the Aventis board unanimously rejected the offer, saying it was "clearly inadequate from a financial standpoint."
The British Broadcasting Corp. web site reported that the French government supported the idea of having a "national champion" in the pharmaceutical industry. Later Agence France-Presse reported that German officials criticized the French government's (particularly Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and his Cabinet) support of the merger, casting doubts on its "devotion…to free-market practices."
Sanofi-Synthélabo now controls 95.47 percent of Aventis's share capital, and is pushing for 100-percent control. Sanofi-Aventis has a scientific-research budget worth US$5 billion.
Bird-flu jumping
After last year's SARS scare in Asia had calmed down, experts predicted the possible return of the disease in 2004. It didn't happen, but health officers in Southeast Asia had their hands full with something else--bird flu.
As early as January reports of transmissions were going around, particularly in Vietnam and Thailand, prompting health officers all across Asia and the rest of the world to meet and discuss ways to step up surveillance efforts. By February Thailand and Vietnam reported 13 deaths, while nine other countries reported having bird-flu cases. As many as 45 million chickens ended up being slaughtered. The strain causing the havoc was identified to be H5N1.
By mid-August there were 27 bird-flu-related deaths, 19 of them from Vietnam. Although outbreaks were also reported in China, Indonesia, and Malaysia, no human transmissions were noted.
Melissa's war
At first nobody talked openly about it. Hospital employees whispered about it, the rich gossiped about it, the newspaper Today hinted at it in a number of editorials--in August 2003, a woman who'd married into a mall-owning family was reportedly shot in the stomach by her husband who was said to beat her up habitually. The woman was even reported to have walked into the emergency room of a Makati hospital on her own, a part of her innards sticking out of the bullet wound. She was confined in the hospital for a few months.
During the second quarter of 2004, a name came up: Melissa Mercado-Martel, daughter of actor Luis Gonzalez, proclaimed she had been regularly beat by her husband, Robert Puyat Martel, whose family owns Harrison Plaza, for 23 years. She filed a frustrated-parricide case against him in April.
By this time things started going complex: An affidavit of desistance Melissa had signed in her sickbed in October 2003 floated up; she and two of Robert's bodyguards had made a statement claiming the shooting was all accidental. A robbery case Robert filed against Melissa in January found space in the papers, but Melissa said what she'd taken from their conjugal home were her personal belongings, and Robert was merely harassing her.
And so Melissa felt like she was "battered all over again" when in August the Department of Justice decided to junk the frustrated-parricide case she'd filed. A number of groups were outraged, especially those who'd rejoiced over the signing of Republic Act 9262 (Anti-"Violence against Women and Children" Act, which had been pending in Congress for nine years) on March 8.
Melissa had filed a petition for review at the DOJ, and is also applying for temporary and permanent protection in a Makati City court. She said she wants to see her husband in jail, and to regain custody of her kids. Supporters and friends said that Melissa's will be a test case on just how effective RA 9262 is.
Bye-bye Pinoy nurses
To be sure, it is a complaint made year after year, but the complaint has never received the same sense of urgency as it has in the past four years: the country is losing its skilled nurses to better-paying jobs abroad.
Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) reveal that the number of nurses who opt to go abroad started to shoot up in 2000. Between 1996 and 1999, only about 400 nurses every year choose to go abroad. By 2000, there was a threefold rise. In 2002, 2,267 nurses left the country, 92 percent of them relocating to the United States.
Since the United States reportedly has a million nursing slots to fill up until 2010, the number of Pinoy nurses leaving the country is not expected to slacken. Already few nurses last longer than a year in local hospitals before they fly to the US. In addition, nursing schools are mushrooming all over the country--from the fewer than 200 schools offering nursing in 1998, there are now 280 of them, with 50 more seeking accreditation.
Despite persisting reports of institutions complaining of a lack of or a quick turnover in their nurses, some experts, reported the Manila Bulletin on September 19, assert that there is no real health-worker shortage, but merely a "steady outflow."
Given the "steady outflow" of skilled nurses, quite a number of observers fear that it may come to the day that all the country is left with are unskilled nurses. In a report, the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) expressed reservations about the growing number of nursing schools and students, saying that "the quantity will surely affect the quality."
Medical schools are also losing their students to nursing. After the results of the March board examinations were announced, Pinoys were shocked to find Elmer Reyes Jacinto, the one who topped the examinations, expressing his desire to turn his back on medicine and become a caregiver. There are now 2,000 doctors taking up nursing.
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