Even if a settlement is reached between the persons involved in the operation performed on a Bago City resident who died later, and her family, the National Bureau of Investigation can still file charges, NBI Bacolod chief Philip Pecache said yesterday.

Peacche said the NBI is just completing its documentation and, hopefully, will file charges in January. He did not, however, say who the respondents will be.

We can file charges even if a private complainant withdraws, because someone died, Pecache said.

Perseveranda Sioco of Barangay Sagasa, Bago City, died on Nov. 28 after she underwent surgery performed on Nov. 25 by a doctor from a non-government organization known as Marie Stopes, at the Bago District Hospital.

Dr. Pilar Mabasa, Bago City health officer and OIC chief of the Bago District Hospital, said in a letter to Negros Occidental Gov. Joseph Marañon yesterday that regardless of whose fault it was, and for humanitarian reasons, Marie Stopes had spent for all hospital a and funeral expenses of Perceveranda and provided milk for her baby. She said that on Dec. 14, Bago Mayor Janet Torres called a meeting of all parties involved, except for the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital, and the husband of Perseveranda said he wanted to know the real reason why his wife died and what support can be provided his family.

A second meeting is scheduled at a later date, she said.

Mabasa said she was submitting a written explanation to the governor why Bago City continued providing free Bilateral Tubal Ligation despite a memorandum he issued in April warning local governments about dealing with Marie Stopes. "My apologies to you that I misinterpreted your memorandum sent out last April 2005. We thought the memorandum serves as a warning for all LGUs to be aware that there exist some problems on BTL activities by Marie Stopes. It did not state specifically that we have to stop dealing with Marie Stopes, or not perform ligations anymore," Mabasa wrote.

She said that before the governor issued the memo, Bago had a list of clients scheduled for ligation until December 2005.

"After a thorough discussion with the city mayor (Janet Torres), we were allowed to continue the activity until the clients on the list were served," she said. At present the mayor has decided to stop all BTL services in Bago City.

Mabasa said Bago City has had considerable experience at partnering with Marie Stopes, also known as Population Services Pilipinas Inc., since April 2002 with a total of 1,700 women successfully availing of BLT provided by Marie Stopes in the city. There were also clients who voluntarily came from Pulupandan, Valladolid, San Enrique, Pontevedra, Don Salvador Benedicto, Murcia and Bacolod, she said.

During the operations Marie Stopes provides all the surgical supplies and medicines, while the LGU counterpart provides the venue for the operations, food for the Marie Stopes team, and transportation for the BTL patients, she said.

Mabasa said a conservative estimate of the cost of each BTL operation is P2,000 to P3,000 a client. Without Marie Stopes Bago City would have spent from P3.4 to P5.1 million for the operations, she said.

Based on our follow-up of the 1,700 BTL operations by Marie Stopes, only 12 cases or .7 percent experienced minimal bleeding, hematoma or infection, Mabasa said. The complications are unavoidable and also happen in other minor or major surgical operations, she said.

In the case of Sioco, she died from septic shock and generalized peritonitis at the CLMMRH. Mabasa earlier said that when Dr. Aileen Apurillo opened Sioco to conduct the bilateral tubal ligation in Bago on Nov. 25 she saw that there were adhesions and did not proceed with the surgery. It was an open-and-close case, she added.

A second surgical team at the CLMMRH conducted an operation on Sioco, Mabasa said in her letter to the governor. Sioco died 24 hours after admission at the CLMMRH so the hospital also has a responsibility to clarify the issue, she added.

Mabasa said the reason why Bago City collaborated with Marie Stopes is the lack of access to free BTL in the province.

Marie Stopes was able to address the gap the Western Visayas Center for Health Development and the Negros Occidental Provincial Health Office "failed to address for a long period of time," Mabasa said.

She said Sioco's case was isolated and was not neglected.

Mabasa also told the governor that because some parties are taking advantage of the situation, it looks like the death of Sioco has been subjected to a trial by publicity.

"Some information has been distorted and picked up by the media," she said.

Mabasa said the claim of health regional director Dr. Lydia Depra-Ramos and provincial health officer Dr. Luisa Efren "that Marie Stopes is not accredited is not only erroneous, but illogical, irrelevant and immaterial."

Accreditation of NGOs providing BTL services by the DOH has been a never-ending issue in the Health Department, she said.

She said she would be grateful if the governor could set a meeting with regional and provincial health officers so they can discuss and resolve the chronic issue of accreditation of organizations providing BTL services.*CPG

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