PRIVATE medical facilities and hospitals in Cebu City are feeling the brunt of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in the metropolis the most.
This is according to the Department of Health (DOH), which said yesterday that more than government hospitals, it is their private counterparts that are in the “critical level” as far as their critical care utilization rate is concerned.
“It is really the private hospitals that are at the critical level with regards to their critical care resources,” said Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire in a virtual press briefing.
Vergeire cited as an example the Chong Hua Hospital in Cebu City, where the occupancy rate for COVID-19 patients currently stands at 98 percent.
On the other hand, she noted how the government-run Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center has a lower utilization rate of COVID-19 beds.
Vergeire said the predicament faced by Cebu City hospitals is similar to the experience of the National Capital Region during its earlier battle against the pandemic.
“When we started here in NCR, the ones that were overwhelmed were private hospitals, such as St. Luke’s Medical Center, Makati Medical Center, Asian Hospital. This is the same thing happening right now in Cebu, where people really go to private hospitals,” she said.
DOH data shows that the critical care utilization rate in Cebu City is currently at 62.45 percent, with ICU bed utilization at 55.83 percent, isolation bed utilization at 62.45 percent, and mechanical ventilator utilization at 41.9 percent.
Aside from the critical care capacity, Vergeire also noted that it is also the private hospitals that are facing shortages in medical frontliners.
She said this is the reason why they tapped the Doctors to the Barrios (DTTBs) to supplement the medical frontliners in Cebu City.
In addition, Vergeire said other organizations have opted to send their own Human Resources for Health (HRH).
“With DTTBs now just voluntary, there are organizations that have committed to deploy their doctors and nurses to Cebu City,” said Vergeire.
Among them are the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine Red Cross, and the Philippine Society of Medical Specialists.
Earlier, the DOH ordered the redeployment of DTTBs to Cebu City in a bid to supplement the number of medical frontliners there.
This was, however, strongly opposed by rural doctors as they complained that the move was made sans adequate consultation with stakeholders.
