The hospi-tel, the future of health care today
It may be a word I’ve coined, but after having been given a guided tour of the St. Luke’s Medical Center, Global City, Taguig, one is compelled to come up with something new and different to help describe what one has seen. It may be a hospital at heart, but to refer to the spanking new St. Luke’s Global City as just a hospital would be like saying a Ferrari is just a car. And while sure, the face of medical technology is constantly in flux, changing from month to year as new advances in equipment and patient care come into play, for now, St. Luke’s indisputably stands as one of the premier, world-class medical centers to be found in the region, something we can be especially proud of — and fully take advantage of!
So from the bottom up — one enters the lobby and one is immediately struck by the spacious and tasteful design. There’s a coffee shop area to the right of the lobby, and it’s run by the Shangri-La. Artwork and pieces of Ramon Orlina glass sculpture all fall within our gaze. And a short escalator ride to the mezzanine reveals a piano bar/waiting area that wouldn’t be out of place in an upscale hotel lobby. On one floor, we have what suspiciously looks like a mini-mall, something the families, relatives and visitors of patients will all take comfort from. Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen, Bizu, Seattle’s Best, a BDO branch and National Bookstore’s Bestsellers; these were just some of the brand names that caught my eye, and have a presence in this area. The fifth floor houses the main Auditorium, conference rooms, chapel and the cafeteria run by Hizon’s.
Despite the imposing appearance of the institution, there are “wards” where four beds to a big room go for P1,500 a day. And if you do want to get your medical attention in real style, there is the Presidential Suite (50k a night) — 150 square meters with a two-bed guest room, a dining area and pantry, a Jacuzzi in the bathroom and two flat screen TV’s. At this point, I really wasn’t sure if I was in a hospital, or touring Manila’s newest boutique hotel! Ambassador’s suites and the Executive suites are the other options. The second structure, the Medical Arts Building houses the clinics of the doctors.
St. Luke’s is extremely proud of the state-of-the-art medical equipment that the center is in possession of, and these include the latest PET-CT Scanner, the three Tesla MRI, the 256 Slice CT Scanner, the Extra Corporeal Shockwave Myocardial Revascularization System, the Prone Breast Biopsy System and the Automated Breast Volume Scanner. With the kind of doctors, medical expertise and patient care that has become such a trademark in their Quezon City hospital a guarantee in this new site, the St. Luke’s Global City should be a beacon for Makati and Taguig residents. There’s also an initiative to make Medical Tourism a reality, in much the same manner as how Singapore and Bangkok have made gigantic strides in this arena. In fact, if you do have a chance to tour the Center, ask them to direct you to the Wellness Institute — it’s a virtual oasis in the middle of a medical center, topped up with a Zen garden! Truly an impressive facility.
Color my world
Today’s three novels come from established authors writing in their prime. Jasper Fforde enjoys worldwide recognition for his literary detective Thursday Next series, while Elizabeth Kostova is best known for The Historian. Richard Doestch has several well-received books in the thriller genre, and runs an investment firm on the East Coast. With political systems, time travel of a different kind and art as backdrops, these books have “colored” my reading hours!
Shades of Grey by The Road to High Saffron by Jasper Fforde (available at National Bookstore): Fforde expertly conjures up a world where perception of color by one’s eyes equates to social position and mobility — much like a caste system. This “colortocracy” is at the root of society in this world, exercising political power and social status; with the “greys” at the bottom of the social totem pole. Our protagonist, Eddie, is a Red, and Jane is a Grey, and the plot revolves around working against the system, even undermining it by achieving a position of power within the system. While this political overtone underpins the novel, it’s the “local color” (pun intended) that makes this novel so entertaining, the first in a projected trilogy.
The 13th Hour by Richard Doetsch (available at National Bookstore): Thrillers don’t come much better than this, and the novel has already been optioned for a film adaptation. At its core, the novel explores the possibilities that open if one could travel backwards in time in one-hour intervals. The film Memento had this as a premise, but purely for “exposition of story” purposes; while The 13th Hour has actively changing one’s Fate as a consequence, and even imperative. Nick witnesses the senseless murder of his wife, and while being questioned, realizes he’s being set up as the murderer. What follows is one hell of a ride, and sure, we know we’re being manipulated, but suspending disbelief has never been so rewarding. It’s classy pulp fiction — if the subgenre exists!
Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova (available at National Bookstrore): This is a riveting novel about Art, illicit Love and Obsession. Robert Oliver, a renowned painter and art teacher, mysteriously attacks a painting at the National Gallery, and it eventually falls to psychiatrist Andrew Marlow, himself a weekend painter, to try and understand why. While the novel starts off like a case study, the various strands of narrative that come into play make this a much more complex story. There are the women in Robert’s life, and eventually, a bunch of letters that date back to the 1870s — correspondence between a lady artist and a much older man, uncle to the lady’s husband. With memorable figures from both eras, this is virtuoso control of the material.
