Chicago physician dies while on PH medical mission
Dr. Jose Delfin
MORTON GROVE, Illinois–A member of the medical mission organized by the Philippine Medical Association of Chicago (PMAC) suffered a massive heart attack and died on January 22, just after the conclusion of the group’s medical event in his native Olongapo City.
Dr. Jose Delfin, an internist from Morton Grove, Illinois, would had been 72 on January 29 when the governor of the province of Abra was to give a reception in appreciation of the PMAC’s second-leg medical mission scheduled for Abra, the home province of Dr. Delfin’s wife, Amelia.
A member of the PMAC team revealed that the ambulance that was taking Delfin to St. Luke’s Medical Center in the Global City in Makati got snarled in heavy traffic and that the time loss contributed to the failure to administer a crucial treatment that could have enhanced the chance for the doctor’s survival. It was further noted that this was Delfin’s first attack.
Dr. Virgilio Jonson, a fellow alumnus of Delfin from the Far Eastern University Medical School in Manila was with him in the ambulance and at the time of his passing. Both Drs. Delfin and Jonson had volunteered in many past annual medical missions in the Philippines.
In a telephone interview in Morton Grove with Delfin’s son, Joseph, it was learned that a wake for his father will be held in Olongapo City. This will afford the doctor’s relatives and friends in the Philippines and members of the PMAC team who are yet to finish their mission to pay their last respects.
Thereafter, his father’s remains will be cremated. His mother, Amelia, will bring Delfin’s ashes to the U.S. for necrological services at St. Martha Catholic Church in Morton Grove. Interment will be at the All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, Illinois. The date will be announced later.
Delfin is also survived by his daughters Aimee (Renz) Valeroso and Ana Liza (Albert) Chan and Joseph’s wife, Christine, and his six grandchildren. He was connected at time of his passing with Norwegian Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital in Chicago.
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