DESPITE resorting to emergency procurement last year for supplies and services in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, delivery of various hospital equipment and completion of isolation facilities for patients and suspected carriers in Cotabato province were still hit by delays.
In its 2020 report on the province, the Commission on Audit said purchase requests for hospital equipment were issued on July 23, 2020 and purchase orders were released on September 8, 2020. But local hospitals had to wait for more than three months before they arrived.
According to records obtained by the audit team deliveries only came in from December 9 and 22, 2020, including eight defibrillators with heart monitors (P3.6 million); 11 electrocardiogram (ECG) machines (P1.67 million); six biosafety cabinets type A level 2 (P1.8 million); seven video laryngoscopes (P1.4 million); nine vital sign monitors (P1.35 million); and 50 economical hospital beds (P1.19 million).
Two anesthesia machines with a combined value of P3.36 million have not been delivered as of December 2020 even if the purchase request and order were released on similar dates along with the rest of the equipment.
“Given the calamity’s existence, fast and responsive actions are crucial to contain and control the spread of the corona virus,” the audit team pointed out. “If only these items were delivered immediately, it could have improved the capacity of the healthcare facilities in the Province of Cotabato.”
The management said that it chose suppliers after “rigid evaluation” but blamed travel restrictions as the reason for delivery delays.
Auditors pointed out that the transactions should not have been affected at all as they were exempted under the government quarantine guidelines.
“The travel restrictions …do not apply to the supply and delivery of equipment, goods, and services in response to COVID 19,” the audit team said.
Also affected were the construction of airborne infection isolation rooms (AIIRs) in eight state-run hospitals in the province which onsite inspection showed to be far from finished.
These were in Cotabato Provincial Hospital where the negative pressure facilities were only 60 percent completed; Aleosan District Hospitall and Pres. Roxas Provincial Community Hospital both with only 26 percent done; and the M’Lang District Hospital, the Alamada Provincial Community Hospital, and Dr. Amado B. Diaz Provincial Foundation Hospital only 24 percent.
