A MAN who had attempted suicide was found along Lacson Street last February 8 and got “first-aid” treatment from the UST Hospital charity ward.
The nurses on duty had initially denied the man because they said there was no one willing to pay for him.
The hospital said the unidentified victim “was just drunk and had only wounds that were not deep.”
Varsitarian artist Rey Ian Cruz and his friends saw the man on Lacson Street with “a lot of blood and unconscious.”
“We saw the man lying on the street. Pumipikit-pikit ‘yung mata,” said Marah Villarubia, one of Cruz’s companions.
This prompted Cruz to ask help from hospital guards to bring the injured to the hospital. They were directed to the nurses’ station.
“They (nurses) asked if I was a relative of the victim or not. When I said that I was not related to him, they told me that the man could not be admitted because no one would cover his expenses,” he said.
Another man later introduced himself as a friend of the injured and told the group to help him carry his friend to the hospital.
The injured man was given “first-aid” treatment upon arriving at the charity ward, said hospital security officer Leon Sembran, Jr.
He explained the injury did not require confinement.
“Both his wrists were cut, but they were not deep and he was under the influence of alcohol,” Sembran said in Filipino. “We just washed it, put Betadine and bandage.”
“We also let him sleep for a while at the mini-operating room of the emergency room so he may be calmed because he was drunk,” he added.
Sembran said the man left the hospital alone.
“The man decided to kill himself because his whole family died in an accident,” said Sembran,
But Villarubia said the man had told them he tried to kill himself out of poverty.
There was no record filed about the patient in either the Hospital or security logbook. Jilly Anne A. Bulauan
