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Up theirs!

I finally saw that controversial rectal surgery video (taken in a Cebu government hospital) on a cable news channel in which a 39 year old gay florist was on the operating table as doctors (and nurses) try to remove a 7 inch body spray canister from his anus. On the video were several medical staff taking photos with their cellphone cameras.

The video was allegedly taken without the patient's consent and the doctors and nurses were cheering and laughing. The video was uploaded on YouTube and got 7 million hits until it was taken out of the site.

The issue has raised questions and medical ethics, patient confidentiality, privacy, gay rights, class discrimination and good grief, Catholic theology!

I believe that the antics of the doctors and nurses have made an a_s of the health professions.The doctors and nurses have shoved up something in theirs! They have shot down the traditional respect we have for them. It is time that the spotlight be on doctors and nurses if they step out of ethical bounds. The medical profession associations and regulators should investigate and if they found out ethical practices were violated, their licences should be revoked. Pinoy society places doctors on a pedestal. But they are like just any professional bound to a code of conduct. Doctors have no right to trash a patient's human dignity (some doctors in the practice of objectifying their patients have treated them as idiots).

The issue of gay rights is timely and I support gay groups on this matter. But before gay rights activists go on the warpath,may I remind them that this case could happen to anyone. whether that anyone was gay, non-gay or even a celibate. Anyone can have something shoved up his/her ass without consent. Anyone can seek medical services and in the process be humiliated.

The lawyers are now talking about criminal liabilities of the characters in this case. I support the lawyers after all that is their job. But amidst this hullabaloo a Catholic priest from the Cebu Archdiocese Msgr. Achilles Dakay blamed the gay man's homosexuality for the crime. He aired his views on Radio Veritas, the Church radio station.

I am not surprised. Dakay's statement is nothing but a restatement of the usual "Blame the woman for the rape" line. Gays and women have something in common. They have less power in our society. The working class gay and woman have it worse. But this case isn't really about whether the gay man's sexual acts is wrong but the wrongness of what the doctors and nurses did.

Dakay seems to have made himself the biggest a_s in this unfolding saga. Similar things have been done to women who have been raped. Has Dakay said something about them?

Of course the man being gay has a lot to do why this case came to public attention. But it is good that the case has been aired .Now women who gave birth in hospitals and have been vidoed without their consent have lodged complaints, as well as a man who had a rectal exam.

But what has been the response of our government officials overseeing the health professions? Answer: Place video cams in operating rooms!

Up theirs!

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