“MR. X” A Probe into the Philippine General Hospital’s Unclaimed Bodies and their Socioeconomic Implications to the Philippine Health System

Abstract

In the event of death, the dignity, respect, and regard for an individual do not necessarily end. In a democratic country where the rights and welfare of the living are always put into limelight, it becomes an imperative as well that the dignity and rights of the dead are taken into consideration. It has been a dismal reality, however, that cases in the Philippine General Hospital depict otherwise. The trend of having unclaimed bodies in University of the Philippines Manila’s Philippine General Hospital is a telling predicament of this scenario. These unclaimed bodies are compulsorily being subjected to various utilizations. A concrete instance of such is the use of unclaimed bodies as objects of dissection in the College of Medicine. Having such cases, this study aimed to mirror the implications of the hordes of unclaimed bodies to the current health system of the Philippines. Furthermore, the study served to evaluate the Philippine health situationer and the cases of public hospitals in the country - specifically the Philippine General Hospital. Basically, what the research tried to unmask is how these unclaimed bodies reflect the glaring bias of the Philippine health system against the poor and underprivileged in the society.