Health Undersecretary Dr. Abdullah Dumama confirmed in a virtual media conference today that Health Secretary Francisco Duque III recently visited Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) to give marching orders as Davao Region experiences a surge in cases since May 2021.
Dumama admitted that the health secretary personally gave orders as he visited SPMC, one of the COVID19 designated facility in Davao City that also caters patients from other regions and also caters non-COVID cases.
Dumama shared that one of the intentions of the health secretary for his visit is to order the Philhealth and hospitals to closely coordinate and ensure that payment is made on time.
“Secretary Duque also called for the department and hospitals to look for ways to increase COVID19 dedicated beds in private and public hospitals”, Usec Dumama said.
The SPMC started with only 32 ICU beds. With the recent surge of cases, the medical center then increased it to 87 ICU beds inorder to accommodate more COVID19 patients with severe and critical cases.
He also ordered for ample supply of life-saving medications and equipment in the hospitals.
Davao City Health Officer Dr. Ashley Lopez that more private hospitals are now offering a percentage of their bed capacity for COVID19 patients.
“Before, there were only two private hospitals that are actively catering COVID cases. But we have addressed some of the issues and concerns which is why there are more hospitals now that are allocating their beds for COVID,” Dr. Lopez said.
He mentioned that the Davao City LGU allocated P30 million for the needed logistics and equipment of the hospitals in order to handle COVID cases.
“The DOH also provided augmentation for the personnel. However, under a surge, the private hospitals are required to allocate 30 percent of their bed capacity for COVID. It turned out that they can hardly reach even 20 percent on their allocation of COVID beds,” Dr. Lopez added.
Another priority highlighted in the visit of Secretary Duque is the need to speed up vaccination following the prioritization strategy.
DOH XI regional director Dr. Annabelle Yumang reported that for Priority Group A1 or healthcare workers with a masterlisted number of 88,755, about 72,128 have received the first dose while 48,860 for the second dose. For the A2 Group or the senior citizens which has a masterlisted number of 360,350, those who have received the first dose are 93,571 while 832 got the second dose.
The region has also started inoculating the A3 Priority Group with 63,735 masterlisted eligible persons with comorbidities. There were already 27,480 who received the first dose, while 11 got the second dose. (PIA XI/Frances Mae Macapagat)
