Richard Heck dies in Manila

Rappler.com
Published 12:47 PM, October 12, 2015
Updated 1:38 PM, October 12, 2015


RICHARD HECK. Richard Fred Heck, awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2010, at his Nobel lecture in Stockholm University. Image from Wikipedia User BloodIce.

MANILA, Philippines – Nobel laureate chemist Richard Heck died in Manila on Saturday, October 10, following a bout of severe vomiting earlier in the week, Reuters reports. He was 84.

Heck won the 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry, along with Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki, for inventing new ways to bind carbon atoms.

The results were used in researcher for combating cancer and producing thin computer screens.

According to the official Nobel Prize website, Heck's prize motivation was "for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis."

Heck developed work on palladium as a catalyst – known as the Heck reaction – in the 1960s and early 1970s. Variants of the same process came about from Negishi and Suzuki’s work in the late 1970s.

Heck's death

Despite earning a Nobel Prize in chemistry, illnesses left Heck surviving on a monthly pension of $2,500.

Two personal nurses took turns caring for Heck during the past year, according to a report from GMA News.

One of the nurses, Jane Rose Pido, said Heck was rushed to a private hospital due to severe vomiting. Heck, however, was reportedly turned away due to unpaid bills.

Of being turned away, Pido told GMA News, "It was painful to see, that the man was fighting for his life but he was left to die, because he did not have money. How could it end up like that? We didn't know which hospital to take him to, so much time was lost. He could have been revived."

Forced to take Heck to a public hospital, Pido said his vital signs deteriorated rapidly, until he died.

Speaking of the Nobel laureate, Pido said the American always talked of going back to the US. "We nearly fought," she said, "because he was insisting that he wanted to go back to the US."

"He would get his walker, walk outside the house and wait for a taxi, and he would say he was going to the airport to return to the US," GMA News quoted Pido as saying.

Relatives of Heck's wife, Socorro Nardo-Heck, said, however, that he had no family abroad.

 

The work of this man was given to the world to use to better itself.

His reward? 2,500 pension and a shove out into a casket from the hospital denying him care.

Shades of Tesla. How very sad and disturbing.

Breaks my heart to read of this.

May he finally be able to RIP.

nwlivewire

 

Why did they take him to a private hospital then?

Government needs to provide for services which the public won't provide. Look around, the Philippines doesn't have much money for public services. I have a buddy who got emergency surgery on a wooden bench.

It's a bit of a dilemma. People come here for a cheaper cost of living (among other things) while in retirement. Yet retirement is the time during which you will most likely need good medical care. It's a gamble.

This guy was still relatively privileged. We read this article about him. How many locals dies in Manila not even attempting to go to the hospital for life saving care knowing they won't receive it? How many people are going through the dump right now to try to survive?

The other story is that he wanted to go back home but couldn't for some reason. That's another gamble people take by coming here without a plan to get back. Somehow they get stuck.

I wonder what he does with his money? Maybe Manila is way more expensive, but you can live pretty d*mn well on a pension of $2500 in Dumaguete. It goes fast, but there is no ceiling to burning through cash. A pension of $2500 is very good here if you can constrain your spending.

 

Makes me wonder if his at-home person (or persons) was milking him dry....

84 years old. Wonder if he was a bit brain-tired and was taken advantage of....

 

Exactly !

 

Since I am retired US military, I have excellent health insurance (Tri-Care for Life).

If I was in the US, this health insurance pays 100% of all doctors office visits and 100% of all hospital bills to include surgical procedures ....

However, being here in the Philippines makes this insurance pretty much unusable.

I guess the best I could do is to pay all medical bills with cash money, and then send copies of all receipts to Tri-Care in hopes of getting reimbursed someday ... However, I can just visualize the time when Tri-Care will tell me that my paperwork I sent them is insufficient or I was seen at a non-approved hospital while in the Philippines (no reimbursement)
_________________________________

Bottom line ... If an expat here in the PI has real medical problems and has questionable and/or no health insurance and is short on cash ... this is NOT the place to be living!

 

He does look content in this photo.

I hope nothing of ill-will was occurring to him in his last days.

But the article did leave me wondering about this concern of him being used as a "cash cow" by others not his wife.

Elder abuse in the US - whether it be simple neglect, or financial "mismanagement", is more common than one thinks. Seniors can get taken advantage of by surviving family members - even from home health care workers. A friend of mine volunteers as an Ombudsman for seniors who are in health care systems, and has told me several stories of where this does occur.

The high costs of medical care and him being turned away - it makes a case for having some money saved back to return to one's home country should one require health care/home health care that can't be obtained in the Philippines (assuming this care CAN be obtained in one's home country).

Again, the case of this man is a sad and disturbing situation.

I think there may be some lessons to be learned from this - perhaps having a back-up plan if things go "south".

nwlivewire