The Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) is looking for additional nurses who will be assigned specifically for Covid-19 cases in the government facility.
SPMC officer-in-charge Dr. Ricardo Audan said in an interview on Wednesday that the facility is in dire need of more nurse because they are now stretching their duty hours attending to Covid-19 patients.
“But our nurses since they understand (the situation) because of (the) pandemic, because they work in SPMC. However, sometimes they feel the fatigue. They experience fatigue,” he said.
He said ideally, the ratio of nurse and patient is one to 25 but now they going beyond because of rising number of patients.
Audan said the hospital can expand the bed capacity for Covid-19 but they do not have enough nurses to attend additional patients if the facility will be pushed through.
The Department of Health (DOH) is helping SPMC by hiring nurses although only few appeared during the interview.
“Ang nurse staffing gyud ang problema (We are really having a problem on nurse staffing), he said.
Audan said they have around 1,000 nurses intended for Covid-19 patients but some of them went on maternity leave and the hospital could not hinder it since it is part of their right. SPMC needs more than 1,000 nurses for them to have enough personnel to attend to Covid-19 patients over three shifts a day.
The City Government of Davao will donate to SPMC 10 container van that can accommodate 80 patients.
Audan had already brought this matter to the Regional Inter-Agency Task Force 11 meeting on Wednesday.
He said during the meeting to address the need, he asked help from Police Regional Office 11 (PRO 11) and Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) to lend their registered nurses personnel for their COVID-19 facility. He said the PRO 11 gave them 22 nurses while 10 from BFP.
“In spite of that, it is still insufficient,” he said.
