TACLOBAN City – A team comprised of 20 health workers coming from three retained hospitals and post-residency program in Eastern Visayas are on standby for deployment to the National Capital Region to help in hospitals overwhelmed by the large number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients.
"We know that many of the hospitals in NCR are overwhelmed with the influx of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients. Given that, all regions in the country are encouraged to augment personnel," Dr. Ludiga Insigne, Department of Health medical officer said.
She added that Eastern Visayas was also supposed to send augmentation to Cebu City, however, the cases in the region suddenly increased and some health workers had been infected.
The official assured that augmentation in NCR will not affect the provision of health services in the region.
"The occupancy rate of patients in hospitals in very low because we discourage the public to go to the hospitals for consultation, especially for minor complaints," she noted.
"When we needed augmentation, many regions sent additional force here so it is just appropriate that we pay back the favors that were given to us," Insigne added.
She said that they have no specific schedule for deployment yet because other regions in Luzon were the first to send additional workforce. But the official said they may be deployed after two weeks.
DOH-8 continued to appeal to health workers, who are unemployed to volunteer or join their health workforce. They shared that volunteers could be part of the second batch of augmentation for Luzon.