Barbi Chan decries lack of medical facilities in Boracay
MANILA, Philippines — Makeup artist Barbi Chan decried the apparent lack of medical facilities in the resort island of Boracay after her daughter allegedly failed to receive proper treatment after having fever and convulsions.
Chan, a beauty minister at BDJ Box and managing director of Dermal Facial Mask Philippines, took to social media on Thursday to narrate the experience.
“The last 72 hours were pure hell for us. I would not wish any parent to experience it,” Chan said in a Facebook post.
Chan said their family arrived in Boracay last December 28 to spend the New Year’s Day there, but her daughter Zoey started to have fever two days later.
Chan said they brought her daughter to a small clinic, which was the “only medical facility available” according to their hotel, because there was “no hospital and the nearest one was in Kalibo.”
“The minute we entered the clinic, she started having convulsion and rolled her eyes. We tried to wake her up but she was losing consciousness,” she recounted.
Chan said: “What scared us the most was the lack of everything. The doctor didn’t seem to know what to do (she was very helpful though) and they were discussing in front of us while our daughter was having the convulsion.”
The clinic then recommended that Chan’s daughter be brought to the hospital in Kalibo in the morning as no transport was available at the time.
“So in the meantime that she was convulsing and fever almost 40 degrees all we did was give her a sponge bath to lower down her fever. Paracetamol and all. Nothing else as they do not have anything more,” she said.
They decided to airlift Zoey to Manila because the doctor recommended to do magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to rule out a concussion.
“The clinic contacted AIR GURU. The most stupid, inefficient and money faced air ambulance,” she said.
Chan’s insurance agreed to pay for the air transport and e-mailed a “service order”: “AIR GURU WANTED CASH PAYMENT. And despite the letter of guarantee from our insurance, they wasted 5 hours with all these unnecessary bureaucratic paper works.”
Eventually, they were able to leave Caticlan and fly to Manila where an ambulance was waiting at the hangar to bring Chan’s daughter to the hospital.
“Boracay, I do not understand why you do not have a proper medical facility? According to the clinic, even patients from the small provincial hospital go to them as they have more supplies and manpower,” she said.
She added: “Air guru- you should not be in this line of work as all you care about was money money money! If something had happened to my daughter because of ur ineptitude, i swear to god i do not know what i will do to you.”
Chan ended her post by saying, “PAHABOL: the “ambulance” (multicab with a detachable stretcher inside that looked very “clean” to say the least) charged us 10k pesos to transport us from the jetty port to the airport (5min drive).” /muf
