Duque urged: Take leave of absence: DOH morale down over probe

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THE morale of personnel of the Department of Health (DOH) has been adversely affected by the investigation initiated by the Office of the Ombudsman into alleged irregularities in the government’s COVID-19 response supposedly committed by its officials and employees, including Health Secretary Francisco Duque III.

DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire yesterday admitted the Ombudsman probe into the alleged DOH mess has caught the agency by surprise.

In a television interview, Vergeire said: “When this came out yesterday (Wednesday), it really caught us all by surprise. You know, (why) it reached this point when we are being investigated for these things.”

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Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, meanwhile, said it would be better for Duque to take a leave of absence while the Ombudsman is conducting its inquiry.

“I think to make the investigation impartial, the most appropriate thing to do is take a leave of absence at the very least… Because obviously he can influence the information that the Ombudsman will request from the agency (DOH),” Gatchalian told a virtual interview.

Vergeire said the morale of DOH personnel took a dive, especially considering that they have been dealing for the past two years with numerous disease epidemics, such as the outbreaks of dengue, measles, polio, as well as the eruption of the Taal Volcano.

“Really, the feeling of the DOH employees, those who are only doing their jobs, of course, it has a huge effect on them as they are asking why are they being questioned over the things that they are doing,” said Vergeire.

Besides, she said, having an investigation will eat up the personnel’s time and deviate their efforts and focus from the government’s various COVID-19 measures.

“But whatever is there, we will continue working because this is our mandate. We are open (to the investigation) and we will be working with them and we will cooperate,” Vergeire said.

Likewise, Vergeire expressed doubts over the accuracy of the claim of Ombudsman Samuel Martires that they were given the “runaround” by officials of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) and the DOH in their preliminary probe.

“Given a runaround? That may not be the case. Probably, they are just following the process since the RITM is under the DOH. Of course, there will be referrals coming from RITM to DOH and back to RITM,” she said.

“As far as we’re concerned, all documents that come in to our office, we give them immediate responses, or at least an acknowledgement that were are still to check it,” she added.

Nevertheless, Vergeire said they have already been instructed by Duque to fully cooperate with the investigation.

“As we have said, we will be cooperating if in case this process will proceed,” Vergeire said.

LEAVE OF ABSENCE

Gatchalian said Duque’s absence will not affect the daily operations of the DOH since it is the National Task Force on COVID-19 which is doing the bulk of activities in the fight against the virus, while the DOH only handles epidemiology data and public health advises.

“Bulk of the activity is now outside of DOH. Nakita ko marami tayong mga undersecretary na kaya naman pagdating sa epidemiology at pagdating sa public health advice (We have a lot of [health] undersecretaries who can perform the job when it comes to epidemiology and public health advices),” he added.

Gatchalian said the government is not acting fast enough to contain the spread of the disease that’s why the number of daily infections continues to spike.

“We’re not doing anything wrong, it’s just we’re not doing it fast enough,” he said.

He said authorities should be strict with mass gatherings to prevent the further spread of the virus now that a number of areas have been placed under general community quarantine

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He also called on authorities to think twice of allowing mass public transport to operate again for fear that COVID-19 may further spread. — With Raymond Africa

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