The health/public sanitation committee chaired by provincial Board Member Jade Acapulco Bautista of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan last week learned that the conduct of autopsy is part of the doctors’ training at the Gov. Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital (GCGMH).

 Dr. Grace Quipit, head of the Internal medicine of the said hospital, told the committee hearing of this. The hearing  presided over by Bautista last week is looking into the report of the cadaver’s missing internal organs.

 It was learned that GCGMH, still popularly known as (former) provincial hospital, serves as s training hospital for new doctors. It’s now a regional hospital under the supervision of the Department of health.

 Garcia hospital in Talibon is now assigned as the provincial hospital following its devolution, along with nine others in other towns, to the provincial government in 1992 based on the Local Government Code of 1991.

 On the same vein, the committee also found out that Numeriana Pasagad was not the one who signed the consent to have her son’s (Virgilio Pasagad who died of ailment) corpse autopsied.

 But it was Mary Ann, a live-in partner, of the deceased (Virgilio Pasagad). The mother said they’re not legally married. Mary Ann was unable to attend for she’s on the family way.

 She (the mother), who was accompanied by officials of barangay Bicao, Carmen town, thanked Bautista and the  hospital’s doctors for the elucidation on the autopsy of her son’s cadaver. With this, she said, she could also explain to her other children.

 Bautista delivered a privilege speech during the SP session presided over by Vice-Gov. Atty. Dionisio D. Balite, Bautista for the probe of Pasagad’s lost internal organs.

 She said that she raised this concern (missing organs) for the SP is “duty bound to determine the real score of every issue affecting the people’s lives. We may not be the proper authority to crystallize things over, but then at the very least, we can be an instrument to clear issues and matters for public interest.”the alleged missing cadaver’s organs.

 The family of Virgilio Pasagad, Jr., who died last week for  a lingering ailment while confined at said hospital, is wondering where have all the organs inside his stomach gone after the doctors GCGMH allegedly conducted the autopsy of his cadaver minutes after he died.

 Mary Ann Pasagad, 40, Virgilio’s wife and resident of barangay Bicao, Carmen, exclusively said of this (cadaver’s organs missing). His mother-in-law, Nomeriana Pasagad, 67, collaborated Mary Ann’s statement.

 She said they only knew the situation after an embalmer of Baguio Funeral Homes discovered and informed them that the organs iside her husband’s stomach were missing.

 Mary Ann said her husband’s body was already buried after three days of mourning.

 The late Virgilio Pasagad was earlier brought to the private hospital for tuberculosis and it was all well for awhile, Mary Ann said. But her husband illness still persist they had to bring him to the hospital again, this time at GCGMH, for they have no money.

At the GCGMH, her husband was being extracted of fluids thru a tube inserted on his side, she said. But after awhile, he died. She said that her husband’s ailment still a mystery to them.

 Mary Ann is pregnant and expected to deliver her fourth by next month. She’s now a widow to take care of her children aged 13, nine and three. (rvo)