SECOND BATCH – Another group of 30 volunteer health-care workers from Central Visayas undergo briefing before they were sent Friday to the National Capital Region to help augment hospital staff overwhelmed by the recent spike of COVID-19 cases. —NESTLE SEMILLA
CEBU CITY—At least 30 additional nurses from the different parts of Central Visayas were sent to Metro Manila on Friday to augment their hospital workforce amid a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in the national capital.
Twenty of the nurses will be deployed to the National Center for Mental Health while 10 will be assigned to the Las Piñas General Hospital, said Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, spokesperson of the Department of Health (DOH) in the region.
Last week, 11 doctors, 35 nurses and four medical technologists from Cebu were sent to the National Capital Region and the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal, also known as “NCR Plus” containment bubble, to assist medical front-line workers overwhelmed by the spike of cases in these localities. In Eastern Visayas, at least 15 nurses and a doctor also volunteered to be sent to NCR Plus areas.
More health-care workers from the Visayas could be sent to NCR Plus if needed, added Assistant Secretary Jonji Gonzales of the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas (Opav).
Incentives
The volunteer health workers will each get incentives totaling P70,000 from Opav and the city and province of Cebu on top of their salary.
Loreche assured the public that the deployment of health-care workers from Central Visayas will not affect the COVID-19 response in the region.
As of Thursday, the critical utilization rate of both public and private hospitals in the region is below 27 percent or far from its 70-percent threshold.
According to the Octa Research Group, which is composed of experts studying the coronavirus outbreak in the country, Cebu has shown a downtrend in new cases and hospital occupancy.
The island’s positivity rate, the group said, has also dropped to an “acceptable level” at less than 10 percent.