BAGUIO CITY March 24 – The Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) disclosed the hospital has some 1,000 health workers who will be mobilized to render round-the-clock service for persons under investigation (PUIs) and presumptive Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) cases in the city.
BGHMC medical center chief Dr. Ricardo Ruñez said the hospital’s available work force include some 400 doctors and 600 nurses who will be tapped to render round-the-clock service to people in need of their services, especially when PUIs start to flock to the hospital to undergo the required initial screening of their swab samples.
However, the BGHMC official pointed out the hospital will not mobilize the available health workers at one time as management decided to pace the workers in preparation for the worst-case scenario so that their work force will not be depleted.
He explained that people can help in controlling the exhaustion and depletion of health workers if they simply cooperate with the strict implementation of the policy for them to stay at home to prevent them from being exposed to PUIs and presumptive COVID-19 cases potentially acquiring the disease themselves
He added the designation of the BGHMC as one of the sub-national testing centers in the country will definitely require the services of more health workers who are well-trained to attend to PUIs and presumptive COVID-19 cases.
As a designated sub-national testing center, BGHMC will perform the initial screening of swab samples of PUIs from the different private and public hospitals in Northern Luzon after which the same will be transmitted to the Manila-based Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) for confirmatory tests.
According to him, once people will unnecessarily flock to the hospital to have their medical check-up, health workers will surely be exhausted in the next two to three months that might deplete the hospital’s work force, thus, BGHMC is only catering to the medical needs of individuals with severe symptoms of COVID-19.
The medical officer asserted the hospital is pacing the work load of available health workers for them to have sufficient rest and prevent them from being acquiring the deadly virus.
He admitted there will come a time there will be inadequate health workers to serve the patients needing medical services from the hospital thus it is important for the people without the severe COVID-19 symptoms to strictly stay at home to help them heal.
The BGHMC chief stated the hospital is accepting volunteer health workers to augment the existing work force, especially when there will be a surge of PUIs and presumptive COVID-19 cases, so they can provide the best for those in need of their service during these trying times where the utmost cooperation of everyone is required to be able to save lives.
By Dexter A. See
