Now in Indonesia. I might not be presenting the paper I've worked hard for. Might. I also do not have a room for the night. It looks like I'll be staying in the hotel lobby for 8 hours. The email was clear that the committee will book for me but the lobby staff do not have a reservation under my name. A major problem is I haven't seen a single person from the Secretariat team and my group moderator is not replying to my message. This is not a good way to start the conference. =|

UPDATE: I did have a room but there were four of us and one slept on the floor. =| Two Indonesians also toured as around a part of Jakarta. I ate street food and survived. We also had this yummy kang kong dish. mmm... I don't think it's hard to be vegetarian in this country. Traffic here seems a bit worse since there's a feeling of being in Espana. The roads are cleaner though... much cleaner.

I also saw my paper in the Academic booklet. It was a nice feeling. I'm jealous of the countries who were able to make quantitative research projects. Next time, we'll do a better job.

Finding myself toxic again with all the juggling of responsibilities.

At least I have Indonesia to look forward to next week.

Unfortunately, I will be reading transes during my spare time there as I have a big test to come home to after that.

And then there's that blasted training we're organizing. I already feel the burden of being a secretary. Never again will I accept a secretary role.

Happy with the results of the 1st General Pathology exam.

Happy that my excuse request has been approved.

DOH Sec Ona is not making me hopeful about the Philippine health situation.

One is the striking lack of a Public Health background aside from advocating preventive nephrology and against brain drain, he has spent the rest of his career as a specialist and before becoming the new sec, the head of NKTI. The DOH needs not a specialist who has been stuck in a hospital for the majority of his career, the DOH needs a person who has worked in the communities and in public health programs.

But what really rubs me off is his desire to lift the transplant ban and allow "gratuity packages" for kidney donors. He fools no one. Everyone knows that the "gratuity package" is what he thinks is the appropriate market price of a healthy kidney. The gratitude of the recipient should not be expressed through a lump sum of money. Money that would actually tempt poor families to sell their kidneys. Add to that the inherent complexity of differentiating money given as gifts and money given as payment. A task I do not trust the DOH nor anyone for that matter to be successful in completing for all cases.

Lifting the transplant ban is stupid. Already, thousands of Filipinos die every year because of lack of available kidneys (and the prohibitive costs) yet Dr. Ona plans to siphon the few donated kidneys away from deserving Filipinos to other foreigners. I must use the nationalism card. The foreigner might be deserving as well but Filipinos deserve them too. What more, that Filipino will be working here and helping in the country's development. That foreigner will just pay a sum for the servics and then leave.

Actually, determining who is more deserving is not an important question. We should focus on the Filipino's right to health to which the State is duty bound to fulfill. Lifting the ban makes it harder for the State to fulfill its duty to fulfilling the right to health of Filipinos. As mentioned previously,  lifting it would just diminish the low supply of kidneys which would just rob more Filipinos their right to health.

Had a busy week and the following week is not looking good either. Times like these when I wish I want lesser and smaller things in life. or maybe it's just the colds talking.