Tales at the ‘crypt’

The one good thing about official holidays that become long weekends is that people get a chance to go home for reunions either with family or friends. I recently reconnected with one of our scholars who is a nursing student in one of the regional state universities outside Metro Manila and has been doing an internship as an on-duty nurse/student at several private and one regional hospital.

“Ana” told me that doing internship in the private hospitals was so unproductive because the private hospitals in the province barely had any patients. As a result, the highlight of the day was when they got to do nursing stuff like inserting IVs or taking vitals from a solitary patient. I suppose the private hospitals don’t have a lot of patients because they are too expensive for ordinary Filipinos and are quick to refer “poor” or economically challenged patients to a nearby government hospital. The other problem is their lack of qualified consultants, in-house laboratories and standard equipment like in Metro Manila.

The reality is that in many places outside Metro Manila, the private hospitals are family-owned businesses by physicians or by a family of physicians. It’s a monument to their achievement as MD and not much for social concerns or healing the masses. Their monument is up, so they see no pressing need to invest the family wealth on modern equipment.

Perhaps it is about time that a law was passed requiring private hospitals to take in more patients under the PhilHealth Universal care program so that patients don’t have to cram in hallways and alleys of state hospitals.

As for the nursing students, they spend a lot of time “clock watching” or watching Facebook or YouTube. Unfortunately, her unproductive and ineffective internship stint cost her P3,000 plus a “hospital affiliation fee” of about P350 +/- per semester that the student has to pay. In comparison to that, Ana learned more and had more hands-on experience and training when she was assigned to a regional hospital. There were so many patients and so much to do that her mentors actively shared the work with the interns.

But of course, in the Philippines, very few internships are for free, unlike in Europe and the US where the term and concept of “exploitation” is dirty and revolting. They also raise the bar by providing housing, food and allowances for interns as required by educational institutions. In the Philippines, it seems that some schools and universities are in bed in terms of exploiting nursing students as a free source of labor and lots of cash.

Which brings me to my final point. The Philippine government has no moral right to restrain or prevent Filipino or Filipina nurses from migrating abroad unless they provide for complete free education and board of nursing students like what some European countries do, where students of medicine get full scholarships.

Last we computed, the four-year nursing course would cost us half a million pesos spread out. All the additional costs for internships, etc. are not even included. This is not education, it’s exploitation!

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With cremation becoming more popular, what are the chances that fewer Filipinos will be observing All Saints’ Day as a grand family reunion like we used to decades ago. Not likely, according to my 85-year-old sabong buddy. He shared that 20 years ago, all four brothers would visit the tombs of their parents every year on Nov. 1 and on each of their parents’ birthday. But as the years passed, one brother after another would pass away until he is all that’s left.

For my part, my Dad used to send me to the North Cemetery every year to locate and check on the shared resting place of his sister and father Luis Sr. I did that for several years, enough to learn my way around, but when I left for abroad in ’84 I never got back to the cemetery until a distraught grand-aunt called asking for help because their family tomb had been desecrated and everything, even the tomb, had disappeared.

Of course, I had to go, and true enough, what used to be the site of the tomb was leveled ground and with no trace of anything, not even a tombstone. I decided to head off to the administration office to find out what happened or to report the matter to the authorities, who then informed me that because the cemetery was a “public” cemetery, the tombs and skeletal remains therein were only allowed for a maximum of 25 years or so.

After that the grave would have to be “repurposed” or reused while the bones would be turned over to family members or ground to powder and cast into a plot. Given that the population is ever increasing while the cemetery has not gained a comparative increase in property, there was no choice back then.

In today’s world, cremation is clearly the practical choice, and in some countries, I’ve been told by in-laws and friends that cemeteries have open areas or dedicated plots where you could spread the ashes of a loved one. Some do it on the sly by spreading the ashes in a favorite public park or during an outdoor hike or mountain climb. Just stick my ashes in the ground and plant a lovely red maple tree over it!

In the end, my friend’s story about diminishing relatives is a generational reality, not to mention the burden we leave with the living to look after the dead in their graves.

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