Capitol to issue show cause order to ‘moonlighting doctors’

By Dolly Yasa

 

BACOLOD City – Negros Occidental Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said Monday that he will issue a show cause order to provincial government doctors who defied the memorandum order of Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson against moonlighting or doing jobs on the side.

Diaz told Daily Guardian here that he is still waiting for the report as to how many doctors will be issued the show cause orders.

Diaz confirmed that the emergency room of the Teresita L. Jalandoni Provincial Hospital (TLJPH) in Silay City has been compromised by COVID-19 after one of its doctors defied the order prohibiting moonlighting.

He said the capitol’s Medical Officer 3 was exposed to the disease while attending to a patient in a private hospital.

The doctor exhibited COVID-19 symptoms but his Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test result is still pending.

The doctor is confined in a private hospital and improving.

Diaz said TLJPH is temporarily not admitting patients after two more of its doctors tested positive for COVID-19.

He said another TLJPH doctor was exposed to her husband, who had fever for four days, while the source of infection of a pediatrician who had mild symptoms of the virus, is still being determined.

Diaz said the operating room and emergency services (ER) of the hospital will remain open.

The hospital’s emergency cases are being attended to in a tent in the hospital grounds while the ER is being disinfected, Diaz said.

All nurses and medical technicians at the hospital tested negative, he added.

Diaz said the infectious disease specialist of the provincial government was at the TLJPH yesterday for a risk assessment.

Diaz also assured that the TLJPH molecular laboratory continues to conduct COVID-19 tests.

“The laboratory has conducted 18,252 tests since June 1, with 422 testing positive for COVID-19 and the rest negative,” he added.

The TLJPH laboratory conducts 750 to 800 COVID-19 tests a day.

Meanwhile, eight more personnel of the Riverside Medical Center Inc. in Bacolod City tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of its employees hit by the virus to 15.

RMCI medical director, Dr. Ma. Antonia Gensoli said the hospital’s operating room and emergency room have been closed for disinfection.

She added that the eight who tested positive are all employees at the RMCI operating room unit

A housekeeping employee who works at the operating room of the hospital tested positive for COVID-19 and contaminated several nurses, a clerk, and a manager.

Gensoli said no surgeries were conducted at the hospital since the housekeeping employee tested positive.

They immediately conducted contact tracing and the eight identified close contacts of the housekeeping worker were then swabbed for COVID-19 tests and were quarantined at the hospital and at the Riverside school, she added.

Gensoli assured that regular cleaning of the entire hospital for the safety of all is being conducted, and that RMCI takes care of its health care workers.

“We are on top of things and taking all the necessary precautions,” she said.