TACLOBAN CITY – The Samar Provincial Hospital (SPH) in Catbalogan City, Samar is ready to accept coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients from their province if they will be rejected at the Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center (EVRMC) here.
The provincial hospital said in a statement on Thursday that they have been preparing a facility in coordination with the provincial government, provincial health office, and the Department of Health (DOH) since January.
“In fact, the DOH inspected our Covid-19 isolation ward on March 20, 2020, which is a separate unit from the main building. Since the first week of April, we have been receiving patients from Tarangnan, the municipality declared by DOH to have local transmission of the viral disease,” the statement said.
Currently, there are seven patients from Tarangnan identified as suspected virus carriers admitted at the isolation ward of the hospital.
Tarangnan has three Covid-19 infected persons with two of them already out of the hospital and now reunited with their families. They, however, are still on strict home isolation for 14 days.
“We will not refuse any admissions from the same area in the days to come. We only transfer complicated cases (unmanageable in our facility) to EVRMC which is the identified as referral hospital by the DOH,” the hospital added.
The 120-bed SPH issued the statement a day after Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez raised concern over the transfer of Covid-19 infected persons from provinces to the state-run regional health facility in the city.
The mayor said in a press briefing on Wednesday at the city hall that he did not see the logic why provinces have to bring patients with mild symptoms to Tacloban if the case can be handled by isolation facilities of local government units and provincial hospitals.
Based on existing DOH guidelines, Covid-19 patients with other serious illnesses should be admitted to a level 3 hospital such as the EVRMC. The region has only two level 3 hospitals. The other one is the privately-owned Divine Word Hospital, also located in the city.
SPH has already started the initiative to capacitate the province on mass testing using the rapid antibody test kit. The plan to establish its own bio-molecular laboratory is on the pipeline as well.
The Samar provincial government earlier announced its intention to put up their own Covid-19 testing center in partnership with the Samar State University. (PNA)
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