Physician says: Governor Chatto can go back to work this week

CEBU, Philippines -  Anytime this week, Bohol Governor Edgar Chatto can already go back to work after the “minimally invasive  plating,” a one-hour leg surgery he underwent at Chong Hua Hospital in Cebu City last Monday.

Doctor Phillipe Baclig, the orthopedic surgeon who attended to Chatto, said the governor can already be discharged from the hospital this week and go back to work alhough with some assisted device while under gradual weight-bearing adjustment as part of the therapy.

Baclig said of Chatto: “He’s doing very good. The surgery went well and we expect him a full recovery. We expect as early as this week, he can go home. He will have some assisted device, but as early as this week he can go back to work ... We don’t expect any complication.”

The main surgical wound only measured up to an inch and there were three other cuts that only measured a quarter of an inch, he said.

The surgeon, however, told The Freeman that he could no longer “divulge anything else regarding the surgery” except that the governor “sustained the fracture and everything went well.”

Chatto, for his part, said he was awake in the entire duration of the surgical procedure and was even observing every step on the monitor during the entire procedure, and then he had a good night sleep afterwards.

On the first day of the therapy yesterday, Chatto said the doctors already started moving his leg. It was the same leg—affected by polio when he was younger—that was fractured when he slipped in a room at a resort in Panglao, Bohol on New Year’s Day where he joined some family members.

While still under therapy, Chatto will be holding office at the ground floor of the Governor’s Mansion when he returns to work this week.

Chatto said the surgery was a learning experience for him and he was very interested because being a physician was supposedly his first dream. He said he could even elaborate on the procedure on anybody who might encounter the same experience, as he had been keenly observing during the operation and had asked several questions from the doctors.

“During the whole duration of the surgery I was looking at the TV monitor and the doctor was explaining because I had many questions. That was my first time to experience to be brought to an operating room,” he said.

The governor was thankful that he benefited from the latest in technology using the stainless steel made in Germany described by experts as better than titanium plates.

He said he wanted to have the procedure in Tagbilaran and even went straight to Holy Name University (HNU) Hospital after the accident at the resort. But his friends—including Vice Governor Concepcion Lim who is a doctor herself, and Tagbilaran Bishop Leonardo Medroso were persistent in convincing him to go to Cebu City or Manila where better facilities are available.

“We have good doctors here (in Tagbilaran), but the facilities, our hospitals in Bohol are still keeping up with standards. They are still improving their equipment, but not yet comparable to Cebu like Chong Hua Hospital. In the future they can surely stand at par with the facilities and hospitals in Cebu,” Chatto added. (FREEMAN)