The operations of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) have been affected by several of its health workers’ coming down with COVID-19. At least 40 PGH employees are still undergoing quarantine.
PGH spokesman Dr. Jonas del Rosario said the most affected were non-COVID operations.
“We have a significant number of our residents from anesthesia and surgery and just for precaution, we have to put them on quarantine so that’s pretty much two weeks of not being able to work,” Del Rosario said. Most of the employees who tested positive were asymptomatic, Del Rosario added.
Meanwhile, in the East Avenue Medical Center, at least 20 medical staff have tested positive for the respiratory illness.
San Lazaro ICUs at full capacity
Health care workers at the San Lazaro Hospital are now taking measures to take care of COVID-19 patients after their intensive care units (ICUs) reached full capacity.
On the other hand, the COVID-19 ward is still far from full despite the 30 percent increase in the coronavirus cases in the hospital.
“We have to place the patient near the nurses’ station and we just have to put monitors,” San Lazaro Hospital spokesperson Dr. Rontgene Solante said.
“Our intensive care unit is already full because most of those admitted are having either severe or critical COVID,” he added.
Sinas tests positive
Philippine National Police chief Gen. Debold Sinas tested positive for COVID-19.
PNP spokesman Brig. Gen. Ildebrandi Usana said Sinas immediately returned to Manila from Mindoro when he learned of his swab test result.
Sinas, he said, is asymptomatic and has volunteered to be confined at the Kiangan treatment facility in Camp Crame.
More funds needed for OFW hotel stays
The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration has asked Congress for P10 billion more to cover costs of returning Filipino migrant workers, the agency’s administrator Hans Cacdac, said Thursday.
Returning workers now stay in quarantine hotels between seven and nine days, Cacdac said, because the Department of Health has recommended that travelers from abroad be tested after the sixth day of their quarantine.
Cacdac said funds for these hotel stays would be good until about May or June.