80-bed isolation facility established in Dinagat Islands
BUTUAN CITY – An 80-bed isolation facility was established for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients in a municipality of the Province of Dinagat Islands (PDI), and started operating on Tuesday, August 11.
It will also serve as a quarantine facility for returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs) and locally stranded individuals LSIs).
The facility was built to cater to an equal number of female and male patients, equipped with fixtures to maintain patient privacy, among others.
The establishment of this isolation facility was in line with the intensified efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 amid the continuous increase in the number of confirmed cases in Caraga region.
The isolation facility is located at a local elementary school that was converted to a Municipal Care and Containment Center (MCCC) by the municipal government of Basilisa town in PDI.
While funding posed as a challenge due to the pandemic, the municipal government was able to source out funds for the facility by realigning its existing budget for unprogrammed projects and activities for Gender and Development (GAD) and Peace and Order (POC) under the FY 2020.
The setting up and operationalization of MCCCs in municipalities is deemed crucial as more and more Basilisanhons are still arriving at the ports of the province to come home in the midst of a health crisis.
It also served as compliance with the call of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Undersecretary Epimaco V. Densing III, enjoining all government agencies and local government units (LGUs) to render full assistance and coordinate among line agencies to mobilize the necessary resources efficiently to curtail and eliminate the threat of COVID-19.
As it is situated at the Tag-abaca Central Elementary School, the newly-established MCCC will cater to as many patients until the resumption of classes on October 5.
To date, the province of Dinagat Islands is still COVID-19-free, the only one in the whole Caraga region, which is comprised of the five provinces and six cities in Northeastern Mindanao.