Inside the cube where art and healthcare meet

The woman had been suffering from palpitations for a week. Her heartbeat was worryingly irregular. She went to see Doctor William Chua, a cardiologist. This was many years ago, but Dr. Chua remembers it all too well.

“I just came back from the States at that time,” he shares. “I touched a spot on her neck (pointing with his index finger), and the palpitations stopped. (The patient and her companions) were saying it was a miracle. No, I told them. It is not a miracle; it is really a maneuver.” The husband visited one day with a beautiful painting as a gift to the doctor. The man was National Artist Cesar Legaspi. Mang Cesar was so happy that Dr. Chua was able to heal his wife Betty.

Sari Ortiga, Crucible Gallery owner and a friend of Dr. Chua, tells the story of how the doctor was able to get two warring masters together in one room: Malang and Ang Kiukok.

“The artists were Dr. Chua’s patients,” says Sari. Both Malang and Kiukok do not even remember the reason for the rift in the first place. But they reconciled in the doctor’s house with their children. “Soler Santos and Andrew Ang were there, so was writer Johnny Gatbonton. That was a long time ago. I still had a lot of hair (laughs),” remembers Dr. Chua. “That was a good day.”

The doctor is an endless supplier of optimism, positivity, and good days. When my girlfriend Avee first saw Dr. Chua, she described him as “Santa Claus.” Thus, people who have heart ailments count on the good doctor for some bits of good news. There is a term for the feeling of anxiety and a spike in one’s blood pressure when one is in a medical environment: White Coat Hypertension. You would get none of that when consulting with Dr. Chua on Tuesdays or Thursdays at the Health Cube Medical Clinics along Shaw Boulevard.

Health Cube itself is not like those imposing and intimidating medical facilities that many people find unnerving. For me, “undergoing a medical checkup” ranks up there with “speaking in public” in terms of fear factor; I’d rather eat a Madagascar cockroach. Not many people look forward to Hospital Day on the itinerary: a reception area overrun with people filling up forms; Nurse Ratched trying to man 10,000 telephones; patients with doomed expressions. (If your body is the Titanic, then prepare to meet an iceberg of illness.)

The three-story Health Cube is the total opposite. It disarms patients with its spaciousness; well-planned layout and clean lines; vintage industrial interiors that feature reclaimed wood, cool exposed piping, antique French clocks (which designer Edna Chua found in Dapitan) and OSB board walls; as well as artworks on view. What greets visitors in the Health Cube lobby is Dr. Chua’s massive sculpture titled “Teamwork,” which depicts radiologists, ophthalmologists and nurses interacting with patients. (Yes, the man is a medical practitioner and an artist. There is absolutely nothing he cannot do.)

“When people come in, we want them to get the idea that Health Cube is not your typical medical clinic,” explains Dr. Jan Denton Chua. (Dr. Chua humbly calls his son, Health Cube president Denton, and his daughter, VP for operations Julie Ann Chua-Lipayon, his “bosses” at the medical hub.)

“Health Cube refers to health to the third power — Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation,” Denton says. “Those are the three aspects of healthcare. The mural encompasses these elements.” We take a tour of the entire medical hub, which Denton says was designed with patient comfort in mind. Is the reception area spacious? Check. Are the departments — from diagnostics to procedures — strategically separated? Check. No chance of seeing big, hairy dudes in clinical gowns walking around? Check. What about the physical therapy rehab center?

I remember a couple of months back when I underwent therapy for a frozen shoulder in a clinic inside a mall: all of us patients were crammed in a hallway with Monsieur Arthritis here and Madame Chronic Sports Injury there, doing calisthenics, as the physical therapists fascistically barked commands a la R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket or checked their mobile phones.

Well, at Health Cube you would even look forward to Therapy Thursdays (or whatever day of the week) with the rehab center’s millennial-gym-like atmosphere: spacious, well-lit and with modern facilities. Dr. Chua and Sari are even planning on holding art sessions for the elderly as well as people undergoing therapy. The two are contemplating asking the great Fernando Sena to facilitate. They are calling it the “Healing Art” sessions in one of the studios where people do yoga and Pilates.

Julie says, “We get a range of patients — from athletes to seniors — and they appreciate the space and comfort.”

Health Cube can be considered a medical mall of sorts. Malls are anchored on grocery stores or cinemas, while Health Cube is centered upon healthcare. As the line goes, “If you build it, they will come.” Denton explains, “Because of Health Cube, a dialysis center and a sleep study center were put up within the complex — and soon there will be a traditional Chinese medicine center and a molecular lab as well. Healthcare is what brings people together.” In the area also are restaurants and a Starbucks where patients and visitors can chill with a cappuccino.

But within the medical center also is a sort of café cum waiting area where people can sit around while waiting for their doctor or diagnosis and look at art in the meantime. Dr. Chua’s “The Healer Was A Carpenter” sits prominently in one area, along with pieces by other artists. Expect more artworks to be put up within the coming weeks.

Denton shows us some state-of-the-art medical equipment, including a 3D mammography machine or digital tomosynthesis, one of only four in the Philippines. The ultrasound area includes a sofa where the husband (plus the other kids) can sit as the wife gets her tummy scanned. It’s an ideal place for a family conversation with the doctor. Doctors are not just medical practitioners, after all. They can also be life coaches or, in Dr. Chua’s case, a kindly old man who has done a lot of good for his patients and equally good art in the process.

Denton and Julie remember going on rounds with their father, and how the patients’ faces would light up the moment they saw him. “Love na love siya ng mga pasyente,” shares Julie. “Until now, sinusundan siya and siya ang gusto makita. He can’t retire just yet.” The man was (and still is) like a beacon of hope in the direst of times.

Dr. Chua concludes, “You cannot be all-science, the same way that you cannot be all-art. There has to be a combination, harmony. Patients get well not just because of the science, but because of how you care for them. You can do all the tests — physical, objective, measurable, quantifiable. But there is always something intangible that spells the difference. If you study the human heart, you would become a believer when you realize what a wonderful, miraculous machine it is.”

Sculpture, healthcare — to Dr. William Chua, both are intersecting, interlocking cubes.

Health Cube Medical Clinics is at 241 Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong City. For information, call 652-1111.