FOLLOWING the bold move of Valenzuela City Mayor Wes Gatchalian to make public an alleged ‘Palit-Ulo’ scam by a big private hospital for ‘detaining’ two young women over unpaid hospital bills, the upper and lower chambers would want to make a say.
Lawmakers from the Senate and House of the Representatives are about to conduct a separate inquiry in an apparent bid to unmask more hospitals – private and public – that have been similarly committing serious violations like detaining the relatives of the patients in their hospital premises to force them pay the bills in full.
Without waiting for any congressional legislation, the visibly-enraged Gatchalian told the ‘Good Riddance’ that he already asked Vice Mayor Lorie Natividad-Borja and the city council to pass an ordinance that would also hold hospital owners and administrators directly accountable for whatever violations their personnel have committed.
”By this, for sure these hospital owners would be more focused in making sure that their personnel including doctors and even security guards are doing their job properly,” he said.
Aware of the medical services the hospitals are providing to the residents although with pay especially from private facilities, the mayor said however that he couldn’t stomach such human right violations.
As a result, he personally accompanied the complainants from the two separate incidents before the City Prosecutor’s Office in filing serious illegal detention charges, among others, against the ACE Medical Center in Barangay Malanday.
The alleged serious illegal detention occurred on February 14 to 17, 2024 while the slight illegal detention was said to have been committed last February 28.
Gatchalian has warned other hospitals based in the city that he wouldn’t hesitate to file a similar case against them for illegally holding people for a reason that they couldn’t immediately settle their hospital bills.
“I’m urging those who have similar experiences to come to my office. We would give these erring hospitals a hard lesson,” the mayor added.
