The Department of Health 11 (DTI 11) assured the people in Davao Region of sufficient oxygen supply as it has already procured and will set to distribute such to the different hospitals and Covid-19 facilities in the region.
DOH 11 official Dr. Raquel Montejo reported that there are four oxygen suppliers in Davao City which can produce three times more than the needs of the region.
However, with the current surge of COVID19 cases in the region, hospitals which don’t have oxygen-generating plants or hospitals which only use cylinder tanks have an average daily consumption of 2,062 tanks while hospitals having oxygen-generating plants have a daily average consumption of 2,718 tanks.
Montejo said that there are six hospitals in the region which have their own oxygen plant.
However, the average production is at 5,273 tanks per day and a maximum daily production of 5,583.
“So our problem is the oxygen supply of hospitals which are only using cylinders or tanks. Based on our surge plan, we will be needing 6,805 tanks and we have already submitted to the national government our requirement for the gap of 4,087 tanks,” Dr. Montejo said.
Aside from working on the oxygen supply, the DOH XI also requested all hospitals to activate their surge plan which was prepared and planned out even before the actual surge.
The DOH XI submits its weekly recommendation to the regional IATF containing the risk classification of local government units for a particular period based on the 2-week growth rate.
“We recommended 4 provinces that may be categorized as MECQ and 2 provinces under GCQ. But again, the IATF also considers not just health parameters in deciding on quarantine classification. It has also considered economic and security parameters,” Dr. Montejo added.
Following the recent surge of cases in the region, the DOH XI issued an advisory to government hospitals to increase bed capacity for COVID19 cases up to 50 percent while private hospitals are advised to increase bed capacity to 30 percent.
Even with the said advisory, the DOH XI was informed that hospitals had difficulty increasing their capacity for COVID19 cases as it would entail hospitals work on additional manpower and logistics as well.
This prompted the DOH XI to request health professionals from other national government offices to volunteer and render service in hospitals or other COVID19 facilities for augmentation. It has also speed up its hiring for additional nurses and doctors needed as the region is set to establish a tele-medication service. (PIA XI/Frances Mae Macapagat)
