‘No doctor should die for lack of PPE’

By Emme Rose Santiagudo

The Iloilo City government called on the Department of Health Center for Health and Development in Western Visayas (DOH-CHD 6) to provide all doctors in private and public hospitals with much needed personal protective equipment (PPE) to shield them against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

“I would like to request the DOH to provide our doctors in all hospitals, both private and public with PPEs because they need protection in order to treat the patients. It is incumbent upon the DOH to provide all these,” Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas said on Tuesday.

The mayor stressed that the city government has done its best to provide food assistance, community kitchens, lodging areas, and even improvised PPEs for frontliners.

According to Treñas, it is now mandatory for the health department to produce the PPEs for the medical frontliners amid reports of doctors in the country dying from COVID-19 due to lack of PPEs.

“It is now the sworn duty of DOH to provide the testing and production for all our doctors. I do not want to see another doctor die because of the lack of proper PPEs,” he stressed.

Seventeen doctors in the country have died while battling COVID-19 as of Tuesday, according to the Philippine Medical Association (PMA)

The city government produced improvised PPEs to be distributed to hospitals in the metro.

Ilonggo designers, Adrian Pe, Bo Parcon, Binky Pitogo, and DJ John Clement among others have also joined forces to make fashionable and colorful medical suits for medical frontliners in Iloilo City.

Aside from PPEs, the mayor also lobbied for the aggressive testing of all PUMs and persons under investigation (PUIs) in Western Visayas to the health department.

“I am requesting DOH to aggressively test all PUMs and PUIs in Western Visayas. We already have an accredited laboratory and trained medical technologists. Let us now test aggressively,” he stressed.

PUIs are individuals who travelled to places with cases of Covid-19 or were exposed to a positive case and manifested signs and symptoms of Covid-19 while PUMs  are individuals who travelled to places with cases of Covid-19 or were exposed to a positive case and are asymptomatic.

In a press conference Wednesday, the mayor expressed his concern over people who are asymptomatic and yet wander around the city.

“How can we tell if one is positive or not if we do not subject them to testing? Look at Korea and Taiwan they were able to control the virus because of aggressive testing,” he furthered.

He added that the health department has allotted 500 test kits for the city.

“It is not enough of course but even with this limited number we can still do the testing,” he added.

Iloilo City has recorded three Covid-19 cases with one death.

The city’s emergency response center recorded 50 PUIs and 2, 432 PUMs.