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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider Luzon devider Nearly 500 medical workers, specialists, volunteers to assist in COVID-19 treatment in Cebu City

Nearly 500 medical workers, specialists, volunteers to assist in COVID-19 treatment in Cebu City

Published Jul 2, 2020 01:54 pm

CEBU CITY – The Department of Health (DOH) deployed an additional 45 medical doctors and 270 nurses on top of the 22 medical workers/volunteers from the Doctors to the Barrios (DTTBs) program, 115 doctors/specialists from the Philippine Society of Medical Specialists (PSMS), and the 33-man medical team from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to help assist in the overall treatment of COVID-19 patients in Cebu City.

Mayor Edgardo Labella (Facebook / MANILA BULLETIN)

DOH Secretary Dr. Francisco Duque, in a virtual press briefing on Wednesday here, said he was grateful for the willingness of these alternative doctors and specialists to serve in Cebu City in addition to the existing medical staff in Central Visayas.

Duque said the second level of health interventions in the treatment of COVID-19 cases is the containment capacity measure to prevent/control the transmission of the virus.   “This involves finding patients aggressively through contact tracing, testing, isolation, and treatment,” he added.

Contact tracing guidelines, according to Duque, had been cascaded down to the local government units (LGUs) but the effectiveness of this is on the local implementation. 

Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella admitted that there was a challenge at the onset of COVID-19 in the City. “We had a problem in contact tracing and testing. It took some time for test results to come out which allowed those COVID-19 positive to roam around but this has been corrected already.  Now, the results are released within two days and we have been using an integrated tracer app that is being used by most LGUs in the country,” Labella said.

Labella welcomed the deployment of doctors, specialists, and other medical services/workers to Cebu City especially since the national inter-agency task force (IATF) noted the significant increase in critical care utilization against critical care capacity that led to Cebu City’s enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) status.

Based on the observation of the national IATF led by Secretary Carlito Galvez, Cebu Overseer secretary Roy Cimatu, and DOH-7 regional director Dr. Jaime Bernadas, Cebu City's health care system has been overwhelmed with patient load.

This has led to the deployment of Doctors to the Barrios (DTTBs) and other healthcare workers to urgently respond to the challenging situation in Cebu City.

According to Duque, the DTTBs are temporarily assigned in Cebu City to provide critical relief as part of the national government’s response to emergency situations. 

Bernadas explained that the nature of the DTTB program is to deploy doctors, usually to remote areas where access to healthcare is almost a challenge and most needed.

“As the country remains in a state of public health emergency due to COVID-19 and cases in Cebu City reaching critical levels, the DOH is grateful to all who heeded the call of duty during these daunting times,” the DOH officials said.

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