EDITORIAL - Right thing to do

The Cebu Puericulture Center and Maternity House, in the storm of controversy over an incident in which the mouth of a newborn baby was shut up with tape allegedly by a nurse to stop its crying, has not been exactly expeditious in dealing with the public outcry that ensued.

 There could be a number of reasons why the hospital took its own sweet time to deal with a public that demanded swift answers. Unfortunately, whatever these reasons are, they cannot hope to overtake the time lost in dilly-dallying. What dearth of information the public sees, they will hope to fill from somewhere else.

To be sure, the hospital did not anticipate this controversy, or that it will explode with such magnitude. But let this be its lesson, and for every other hospital for that matter -- it is always better to treat controversies as a public relations matter, not just as an issue of professional concern.

Issues of professional concern can be addressed as they move along. But there is an urgent need to deal with the public relations aspect of any controversy swiftly, or it can just as swiftly go out of hand. Hospitals, like any other business depend on reputation to be viable. That is where good p.r. comes in.

But how do you "good p.r." a potentially explosive incident such as the issue at hand? Contrary to the fears of many, it is in fact quite simple -- do not wait for people to get any wrong ideas but be the first to deal with the situation by promptly issuing a statement, instead of being incommunicado.

Along this line, one may actually be able to tell companies apart and see which one has a professional attitude toward p.r. and which has not. Some companies, like one airline, do not wait for media to sniff out an incident -- it promptly goes to media first with the news. Not so others.

There is a good reason to go to media first, or at least be very accessible and open to them. By going to media first you ensure that the facts are straight. By going to media first you also get to control the situation and can at least, to a reasonable degree, make sure the facts, as reported, work in your favor.

This is what the hospital should have done. And as a lesson for the future, this is what it should do. Even if not all the facts are in, by simply coming right out that it is aware of what happened and is doing something about it, it already is in control of the situation.

One other thing. It is a mortal sin in good p.r. to instead blame the public for what happened or for the fallout that ensues. Right or wrong, the public will always interpret incidents the way it sees it. This is precisely why one must be on top of the situation -- by being first, and by being open.