Communities turn their backs on sick nurses

SERVING THE FRONT LINE Volunteers and members of medical teams around the country, like this worker in Albay province, serve the front line and continue to look after patients despite the risk of contracting the new coronavirus disease. —MARK ALVIC ESPLANA

SAN PEDRO CITY—Some nurses and health workers in provinces in southern Luzon have tested positive for the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and are being pulled out of front-line duty against the outbreak, weakening hospitals’ capacity to handle the growing number of suspected and confirmed cases.

A number of hospitals have already shut down their critical sections, while one, San Jose District Hospital in Batangas province, had been closed for a week.

In Laguna, a number of the provincial health office (PHO) staff have caught the virus, its chief health officer, Rene Bagamasbad, said on Wednesday. It was “already more than what my one hand’s fingers could count,” he said.

“How do you make a [skeleton] workforce even more [of a skeleton workforce]?” Bagamasbad said.

Government health workers, mostly on “job-order” status, normally take 12-hour shifts on the front lines.

Just this week, Bagamasbad said he had to cut short the work shift of a nurse, an emergency medical technician, when doctors received his test result as COVID-19-positive.

Driven away

The 32-year-old nurse showed no symptoms of the disease, but believed he contracted the virus from one of the many patients he had “carried” on stretchers from one hospital to another since the outbreak.

The nurse said his team was preparing to bring him home to Majayjay for quarantine on Wednesday, but the municipal government refused his entry. “Parang pinagtatabuyan nila ako (I feel like was being driven away),” he said in a phone interview.

While local governments have imposed lockdowns to contain the virus spread, the PHO’s “stand” is to send home patients with mild or no symptoms in order to decongest hospitals.

“There are still proper protocols [even for home quarantine] and [the nurse] will still be monitored. It’s just a waste of [hospital] bed when we can give it to another patient with severe symptoms and who requires actual hospital treatment,” Bagamasbad said.

DISINFECTION POINT A man on a motorcycle passes through a disinfection area set up at the boundary of Calamba City and Los Baños town as Laguna province is placed on lockdown. —RICHARD A. REYES

Hospital shutdown

He said the matter had already been raised to the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

In Batangas province, chief health officer Rose Ozaeta said at least 28 nurses and personnel of San Jose Hospital were isolated after being directly exposed to a COVID-19 patient, who later died.

They, too, were refused by their communities, Ozaeta said.

The hospital has been closed since March 26.

In Laurel town, a hospital temporarily shuttered its emergency room. Bauan Doctors General Hospital’s emergency room and laboratory were also closed for disinfection.

The Laguna nurse, who is now in hospital isolation, appealed against discriminating front-liners.

More than the virus, he said he was scared of catching other diseases in the hospital when he felt that he could recover sooner at home.

“I will get better, ma’am,” said the nurse. “I still have a lot of patients to carry.”