By: Villamor C. Visaya Jr.
(Published in its print edition on November 23- 29, 2024)
THIS time, permit me to go personal as I share my litany of losing a loved one.
Just like in a flick of a finger, a bubbly, loveable, smiling-face and very active baby was gone.My only grandchild, one-year-and-four-month-old granddaughter Zhavia Denice Visaya left the world abruptly on October 25 at the Philippine Heart Center in Quezon City.
She was generally healthy just like any baby except for having small holes on her heart that were discovered when she was four-month-old.
Her parents were upbeat on her recovery from a congenital heart disease so they were lured by the constant calls of the doctor to have her operated on the soonest.
It pains to see that prior to Zhavia’s death, her video footage showed she was even laughing and playing inside her hospital room. She was even playfully walking and smiling with grin from her patient room to the anesthesia room–sporting her usual positive mindset and innocence, not knowing the tragedy that would later strike her frail body.
Just barely 24 hours after the doctors conducted a procedure to insert a catheter inside her body in preparation for a possible heart operation, she vomited blood and the doctors claimed blood infection due to sepsis.
I am not a doctor but the incident report was never given to Zhavia’s parents by the doctors, including the doctor, Dr. Marivic Bala who claimed that the baby’s procedural operation to insert a catheter was successful.
Her doctor was nowhere to be found when the baby was trying to be revived. A legal option is being mulled against the doctor and her fellows but that will be another story.
Medical negligence, I suspect, lurks among some doctors who rake in millions of pesos out of their unsuspecting clients and relatives of their victims. Karma works for them sooner or later.
Filled with memories, lots of bonding with baby Zhavia Denice, makes us hard to forget how she left the world as an angel.
Our dreams for her had crumbled upon her death.
Only time will tell how and when can we recover. For now, we cherish the memories with our lovely baby Zhavia.#
