"The culprits must be shamed in public if not given a long prison term."
News reports last week of fraud in the payment of claims for dialysis patients caught my attention. The report by two former employees named the WellMed Dialysis Center and certain PhilHealth officials and claimed connivance by the dialysis provider and the government insurance agency. The corrupt practice, according to the whistleblowers, was to continue collecting payments for dialysis treatment for patients who are already dead and also to pad payments so that they are bigger than their actual cost.
The corrupt will always find creative ways to cheat the public and steal government funds. This is cheating of the highest form and we can now call its “daya-lisis.” “Daya” in Filipino means cheat. To be fair, the fraudulent scheme cannot be totally blamed on WellMed and PhilHealth officials alone. It has to have the participation of relatives of the deceased who most probably allowed its continued collection for a small percentage of the money. The rationale for their consent: They spent a lot in medical expenses for the patient before his or her demise and they might as well recover some of it Treatment and medication is expensive for this complicated disease that affects the kidney, bladder, heart and lungs. The World Health Organization has raised diabetes as an endemic affliction affecting millions of people worldwide
As a diabetic myself for the last 20 years, I think the report about the dialysis payment fraud is bad news. It means it will be more difficult for me to avail of the treatment once my current Type 2 diabetes worsens. It will be the same for many other diabetics who do not have the funds for the expensive treatment. I had a diabetic brother who after undergoing dialysis for months passed away nonetheless at the age of 76. It was the same for another brother and an aunt so it must run in the family.
Former Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque, who’s also a former columnist for this newspaper, said the Well Med- PhilHealth case is not an isolated one. Indeed there must be other instances when poor desperate families could not even get sufficient funds for hospitalized loved ones. Yet this is money automatically deducted from employees’ salaries.
In response to the grave case of corruption, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the prosecution of the guilty parties and to clean out PhilHealth of its errant officials. The report now coming out of PhilHealth is that there is a “Mafia” behind the racket who divide the money among themselves. Perhaps a lifestyle check is in order to find out who among in the government health insurance agency is living beyond their salary scale. The presidential action should give courage to those in the state health agency who are afraid of being removed from the service by the higher-ups if they come out with the incidences of official corruption.
There are mounting calls for the suspects in PhilHealth to resign but I doubt if they would have the decency to do so as that would in a way be an admission of guilt. But they must be flushed out from the sanctuary of their positions so a deep and total investigation can be carried out. The culprits must be shamed in public if not given a long prison term, in fairness to those who toil honorably despite low wages like public school teachers and farmers who break their backs planting to feed the nation.
Public service as they say, after all, is a public trust. Violation of it deserves the strongest punishment.
