As someone who currently works in health care in the US, I’m constantly being reminded to maintain patient confidentiality, making sure not to talk about any cases out in public, or mention any names or other personal information, for fear of losing my job and just out of common respect for the patients who are at the hospitals. As I’ve worked for the past few years as a transcriber, I’ve heard some shocking cases, and some rather hilarious cases, which obviously I can’t talk about.
So it comes as a bit of a shock to see that a nursing student from the Philippines posted a video on YouTube about a doctor removing a perfume canister from a patient’s… um, nether regions. In the video are tens of medical staff making homophobic remarks (the patient’s partner had sent him to the ER), and cheering and hollering when the canister was removed.
Not surprisingly, the Filipino government’s suspended two doctors and a nurse already for such gross disregard of the patient, and the patient himself is suing the medical center for about P6 million, and a well known Filipino gay rights group is calling for an investigation into revoking the licenses of the other nurses and doctors involved.
Regardless of how a medical professional feels about his or her patient’s lifestyle choices, such behavior is uncalled for, especially posting it on a site such as YouTube. I know if anyone in the hospitals I worked for tried to pull that, he or she would’ve been immediately fired. And if anything, it highlights the deeply ingrained homophobia that exists in the Philippines, especially outside of Manila, where queers are forced into specific jobs and niches in society because they’re otherwise seen as social deviants. While Manila’s queer scene is starting to blossom, it’s startling and sad to see that just a couple hundred miles away, a queer person can’t even be treated with respect from healthcare professionals–people that he should be able to trust the most.
- Excited
- Fascinated
- Amused
- Disgusted
- Sad
- Angry
