Court allows Zaldy hospitalization but hospital refuses him

By MARK MERUEÑAS, GMA News

Published July 18, 2011 1:53pm

The Quezon City court hearing the Maguindanao massacre trial has allowed massacre suspect Rizaldy "Zaldy" Ampatuan to undergo a medical check-up outside Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City. However, suspended Autnomous Region in Muslim Mindanao governor Zaldy ended up not being examined after the hospital where he was supposed to be brought refused to admit him. In a manifestation filed before the court on Monday, Zaldy's legal counsel Redemberto Villanueva informed the judge that the hospital has refused his client, citing "security risks" and invoking its "right as a private hospital." GMA News Online is withholding the name of the hospital pending a statement from hospital management. Request for hospitalization In a July 15 order, Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of the Regional Trial Court Branch 221 "partially granted" the request for hospitalization. Solis and ordered Quezon City Jail Annex warden Senior Inspector Edgar Camus to bring Zaldy to the hospital as an outaptient. Zaldy's camp originally requested Zaldy's confinement but Solis-Reyes only allowed a medical check-up as an outpatient. Chief Inspector Agnes Aglipay, head of the Health Service Unit of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology-National Capital Region, earlier recommended that Zaldy needed to be treated in a "hospital setting." Aglipay said in her recommendation that Ampatuan experiences episodes of shortness of breath relieved only by oxygen installation and nebulation. Among the tests that Aglipay recommended Zaldy to undergo were:

12-lead ECG, two-dimensional echocardiography;

24-hour Holter monitoring, carotid duplex scan;

peripheral arterial and venous duplex scan;

endothelial function test; complete blood chemistry which includes high sensitivity C-reactive protein and myocardial perfusion imaging. Zaldy's recent check-up After a recent check-up of Zaldy inside Camp Bagong Diwa, doctors discovered that the suspended ARMM governor "has coronary heart diseases and poorly controlled Diabetes Mellitus that needs immediate evaluation and prompt treatment. Dr. Maita Senadrin, Zaldy's cardiologist, said the massacre suspect's blood pressure during the checkup was 140/90. "At present, he complains of frequent thirst and urination at least four to five times at night, blurring of vision, lower extemity pain and numbness," said Dr. Reynaldo Rosales, Zaldy's endocrinologist at St. Luke's Medical Center-Global City. Doctors said Zaldy has been both hypertensive and insulin-dependent since 2001. "He was also diagnosed to have fatty liver and previous gastroscopy showed him affected with Helicobacter pylori," Senadrin said. At present, Zaldy is "isolated" from his fellow suspects and accused in a separate cell (Cell Number 6) at the Quezon City Jail annex inside Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City due to health reasons. He, however, has yet to be arraigned for his supposed role in the November 2009 Maguindanao massacre. - VVP, GMA News

Tags: zaldy, ampatuan, maguindanao, massacre