Cebu Doctors Show Disrespect to Gay Patient

A 39-year-old homosexual is planning to sue a medical team after he saw in a cellular phone of a friend last Friday a circulated video footage of the operation to extract a perfume canister stuck in his anus during a sexual act.

The operation on the man, who only wants to be identified as “Jan-Jan,” was done at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) last Jan. 3 yet, but the video footage has been circulating through cell phones since then and was even uploaded in the video-sharing web site, YouTube.

“I trusted them. And yet they ridiculed me behind my back…Was that something a professional would do? I can’t even walk the streets without being laughed at by neighbors. I want my ordeal to end. And I hope it doesn’t happen to anyone else,” Jan-Jan told Sun.Star Cebu in Cebuano.

The video that runs for two minutes and 28 seconds shows an operating team of more than 10 people laughing, with someone shouting instructions while the operation was going on.

It captures individuals with mobile phones and cameras taking footage of the operation. A brief panning motion shows some of the faces of the people involved in the procedure.Loud cheering and shouting can be heard as the canister that someone describes as a “baby” is slowly pulled out of the anus. One of the staff even opens the perfume and sprays it around.All the time, the patient whose face is not visible in the video, is unconscious.

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This is a violation in many levels:

* The doctor-patient confidentiality ethic was not followed.
* There were more than enough people in the operating room (most of them were only there to record the procedure on their cellphones).
* The loud, childish jeers from the crowd after the spray can was removed was sickening. A clear disrespect for the patient.
* And the doctor had the gall of telling this to the patient, as stated in that same report…“On Jan. 5, when Jan-Jan was scheduled to be released, his doctor approached him and asked if he wanted to earn money by uploading the video taken during his operation on YouTube. Ashamed with what had happened, he refused.”

When Terri Hatcher said that infamous line in “Desperate Housewives”, which maligned the medical practitioners in the Philippines, most of our countrymen went gung-ho in protest.
But you know, she may have a point.

-Sunstar