MANILA, Philippines ? Doctor Rogelio ?Rogie? Tanco, medical director of the Philippine Rotary Pacemaker Bank and a board member of Sagipbuhay Medical Foundation, writes a poignant piece why doctors serve. I?m printing excerpts from the article which reflects the insights of a physician who is confronted with the challenge to make the science?he has spent long years to be a specialist of?work to save lives, even those who don?t have the means to procure the expensive therapies that come with the science.
?Growing up in a large government hospital exposes one to a social inequity, the low priority of health in the hierarchy of Philippine politics. Training abroad exposes one to socio-political milieus where health is higher on the priority list, where even homeless vagrants can get coronary bypass surgery and drug addicts valve replacement surgery, all taken care of by the state. Now that we have returned to our country, it is difficult to reconcile our level of expertise with the realities of day-to-day living of our populace. The gaping divide between what we can do and what the population can afford needs to be bridged.
?What are the rewards of philanthropy? Or is what we do really philantrophy, when we choose to work in a government hospital like PGH. Not really. We are not here to reap awards or seek fame. Perhaps we are only repaying a debt of gratitude to our alma mater. Perhaps it is growing up in a milieu where a sense of social justice has been ingrained into your moral fiber that giving to the less fortunate becomes a reward in itself, a part of self-fulfillment or self-actualization.
Flame of social justice
?Indeed there are many organizations in PGH who work with different departments but with the same flame of social justice burning within them, or maybe they call it Christian charity. When an amputee receives an artificial limb and regains the ability to walk, you bring him back to life. When a surgeon removes a cataract, the nearly blind person regains vision and for some, that is the lease on life they latch on.
?The justice of seeing a young breadwinner back at work is a reward in itself. Life is precious, and if only a few months is all we can give a person then that too is a reward in itself.
?An elderly woman was also referred to the pacemaker bank, she had had multiple strokes in the past. She had a heart condition that predisposed to recurrent strokes. Even though she was elderly with not a good prognosis, we decided to implant a pacemaker after seeing that there was a potential that we can extend and improve her quality of life. We never got her out of the wheelchair, but at least we saw her wheel out of the hospital with a wide beaming smile. The smile brought on by the gift of hope that our pacemaker gave her and her family.
?There is more to her disease that a pacemaker cannot alleviate, and so she succumbed a year after. But that was a year of life that you cannot put a price tag on, a better quality of life for at least a year with her family.
Not after publicity
?We are not after awards or publicity. We are not in the running for the plum of being the most outstanding physician of the year. Our resources are little, and we help those that we can. We prefer our relative anonymity, although we would like Sagipbuhay to be better known in the community and become a byword, if only to cull up more donations for our advocacy.
?In the Department of Medicine, the frontliners are our residents and interns. They see acutely-ill patients in the emergency room and medical wards. When they have access to funds for medications or diagnostic procedures which indigent patients cannot afford, it becomes a rewarding experience for them to see how the right drug or right diagnostic matters at the right time. Young minds need affirmation that what they learned is useful in saving lives.
?In the medical profession, we have a saying: cure sometimes, alleviate suffering often, comfort always. It does not take much to give comfort, to console by doing something to give the patient or the family a sense of hope. We cannot make Lazarus rise from the dead, but in the depths of our soul we are simply finding fulfillment in being able to do what we learned to do and when sick people get the right treatment at the right time. It is bliss to see small miracles happen once in a blue moon.?
We can help Dr. Tangco and his colleagues at Sagipbuhay Foundation make small miracles happen a little more frequently than their meager funds would allow. For those who are interested to help, you may call or text 0919-3298887, 0917-8114205, 0917-5364766 or e-mail sagipbuhay@gmail.com. You may also follow instructions on donations at their website www.sagipbuhay.org.
