Sandigan OKs GMA checkup at SLMC

MANILA, Philippines - The Sandiganbayan, citing humanitarian reasons, has granted former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s request that she be allowed to undergo a two-day medical checkup at the St. Luke’s Medical Center (SLMC) in Quezon City next week.

She was given permission to leave the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) on Oct. 21 and 22 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Arroyo, who is under hospital arrest while on trial for plunder, asked for the medical furlough last week.

Her lawyers, in a motion, asked the Sandiganbayan’s First Division to allow her to leave the VMMC to have her doctors look at possible complications arising from her three cervical spine operations that are causing numbness and weakness of her left arm.

“In view of her progressing left arm radiculopathy and weak grip, which could be attributed to her three major cervical spine operations, we are also requesting a repeat electromyography with nerve conduction velocity test to localize the involved nerve roots,” Arroyo’s doctors said in a medical certificate dated Oct. 1. The certificate was submitted by her lawyers to the anti-graft court.

VMMC doctors Martha Nucum and Antonio Sison said Arroyo said the hospital does not have the necessary equipment for the tests Arroyo needs, such as a positron emission tomography scan and tumor marker tests like alpha feto protein for the liver, carcinoembryonic antigen for the breast and pancreas and a CA 125 calcitonin for the medullary thyroid.