In a letter to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and COVID-19 vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr., the Western Visayas chapter of the Philippine College of Physicians (PCP) also asked for more COVID-19 vaccines, medical supplies, and equipment, including ventilators and high-flow nasal cannula.
“With the current surge of COVID-19 cases in Iloilo City and Iloilo Province, we internists and frontliners have visualized and evaluated the current situation among our hospitals and health care facilities. Quality patient care has become compromised due to lack of medical supplies, manpower, and funds,” according to the letter.
The doctors also appealed for more hospital personnel and medicines such as Remdesivir, an anti-viral drug used in the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized adults.
Moe vaccines
Business groups in Iloilo have backed calls of local governments for the national government to allocate more COVID-19 vaccines to the city and province.
In separate letters dated June 14, the Iloilo Business Club, Inc., and the Iloilo Economic Development Foundation, Inc (ILED) appealed to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases to increase the vaccine allocation, citing the worsening COVID-19 situation in the city and province.
“The city and province have spent a year and a half battling the COVID-19 pandemic, but the virus is still spreading in many barangays and establishments and producing new variants with the potential to put us back where we started,” according to ILED.
ILED said the worsening COVID-19 situation in Iloilo “means greater economic fallout, more school closures, more healthcare disruptions, and threatening the future of families everywhere.”
The IBC said total active COVID-19 cases in the city reached 2,663, while those in the province reached 2,331 as of June 14.
“This public health situation directly impacts our local economy, and the business sector is suffering from the effects of strict quarantine protocols,” it said.
The PCP-Western Visayas also appealed for help for the payment of claims of hospitals from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).
Last month, Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas asked Duque and PhilHealth President and Chief Executive Officer Dante Gierran to address the unpaid claims of nine hospitals and the city’s molecular laboratory over unpaid claims amounting to at least P860 million.
Treñas said the unpaid claims have affected the capacity of hospitals to enhance their response to the pandemic.
LZB