Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, replying to questions at a congressional hearing Friday, disclosed that six cities which he did not identify had reached 100 percent intensive care unit (ICU) utilization rate.
Batanes Rep. Ciriaco Gato Jr. had questioned the DOH data, saying the ICU and isolation beds were not yet fully-occupied, but several patients were still not being admitted.
Meanwhile, the government is planning to establish five more modular hospitals nationwide by June, according to Duque.
He said the Department of Health and Department of Public Works and Highways aimed to complete five more modular hospitals in NCR, Batangas and Davao by June this year.
“This week, more than six new TTMFs (temporary treatment and monitoring facilities) and isolation facilities with over 1,700 beds in NCR and nearby provinces will be open and running,” Duque said.
This is part of the continuing efforts to address the most pressing concern of countless reports of overflowing hospitals in the midst of surging cases, said Duque.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, on the other hand, said that aside from the modular hospitals and tents that have been put up, the National Center for Mental Health had also been designated as a 1,000-bed COVID-19 facility for moderate cases.
The DOH also said “more (health workers) are expected to be redeployed” to NCR Plus.
Two hospital groups have previously said hospital capacity is not as big a problem as the shortage of manpower.
They pointed out that the lack of health workers hobbles their capability to attend to more patients.
However, the DOH said it has enough funds to hire more health workers but the number of applicants remains low.
At the same time, a lawmaker from the Bicol region said DOH officials could be held liable for “almost criminal negligence” for failing to fully equip the country’s health workers at the frontlines of the war against COVID-19 with personal protective equipment that are essential in their daily battle to save patients and their lives as well from the deadly coronavirus.
The failure of DOH executives to use the P3 billion allotted in Republic Act 11494 or the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act (Bayanihan 2) for the acquisition of PPEs “smacks of criminal neglect,” said Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte.
He said “DOH’s continuing inaction has put the medical frontliners at serious risk of infection, great harm and even death on a daily basis in the absence or shortage of such indispensable protection against the highly infectious pathogen.”
Congress included the P3-billion budget for the PPEs of healthcare workers in the Bayanihan 2 measure in anticipation of any possible scarcity in the supply of the PPEs, such as what is happening now in the midst of what experts have called the “second wave” of infections since the pandemic broke out in January last year, Villafuerte, member of the House independent bloc, said.
“What makes this almost criminal negligence doubly infuriating is that P3 billion has been set aside in last year’s Bayanihan 2 for the purchase of PPEs for our medical frontliners, and yet DOH officials have chosen to take their own sweet time in buying such protective equipment that are so essential in our healthcare workers’ daily battle to save infected people and their lives as well,” Villafuerte said.
He pointed out that the government needs to provide our healthcare workers with a constant and adequate supply of PPEs for their own protection, especially at this time of a surge in COVID-19 infections, which has been traced in part to the advent of new, more transmissible variants of the virus.
“Does this inaction manifest plain lethargy on the part of our DOH officials to purchase PPEs for our hospital frontliners or does it unmask a more serious flaw, which is their collective cavalier attitude toward our doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers who are at the frontline of the global war against this lingering pandemic?” he asked.
