Iloilo City hospitals hitting capacity; more vaccine doses sought

Jerry Treñas —PHOTO FROM MAYOR JERRY TREÑAS FACEBOOK PAGE

ILOILO CITY—The hospital admission waitlist for COVID-19 patients in this city is getting longer due to a shortage in beds dedicated for those infected with the coronavirus.

Mayor Jerry Treñas has raised alarm over the health-care situation here, noting that even those without COVID-19 were finding it hard to get admitted to hospitals.

The local government reported that 326 confirmed and 97 suspected COVID-19 patients were confined in 10 hospitals in Iloilo City as of June 19. Only 19 COVID beds were available in four of the 10 hospitals in the city.

At least 63 were wait-listed for admission with another 34 waiting in emergency rooms.

“Please stay at home. There are no more vacant COVID beds in the hospitals in Iloilo City. The hospitals have been overwhelmed by the number of positive patients who are seniors and those with comorbidities,” Treñas said in a statement.

“I ask the medical community, all the members of the [Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases or IATF] to come down and check our actual situation and investigate if it is now a new strain we are fighting,” he said.

Iloilo City was placed under modified enhanced community quarantine on May 23 but its status was extended twice until June 30. COVID-19 cases, however, continue to increase despite the heightened restrictions.

Iloilo Medical Society and Treñas also asked the national government for more vaccine doses for his city as well as for more health-care workers, medical equipment and medicines as it faces an increase in COVID-19 infections.

Jab supply

The mayor said Western Visayas, where Iloilo City is regional capital, should be given more doses like Metro Manila and eight other priority areas, including the provinces of Pampanga, Bulacan, Batangas, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal, and Metro Cebu and Metro Davao.

According to Treñas, cases in these areas, collectively called NCR (National Capital Region) Plus Eight, went down because the national government flooded it with vaccines.

This, he said, should be done in other areas to bring down cases as there was no way to stop people from going out since they also needed to work and feed their families.

“The only way we can really stop the surge is for the national government to add more vaccines. In the same way you lowered the cases in the NCR Plus Eight by flooding the [local government units or LGUs] … with vaccines, I think you should do the same thing [for other areas],” he said at the Laging Handa briefing.

He lamented that the national government heeded the advice of private group OCTA Research to concentrate vaccination in the NCR Plus Eight, which resulted in an an increase in cases in other areas.

But presidential spokesperson Harry Roque disputed this and said the national government was listening to advice from a host of experts, including officials of the Department of Health, Philippine General Hospital and Ateneo Medical School, who are part of the IATF, and not just OCTA.

He said only 32.2 percent of the vaccine supply went to Metro Manila and other priority areas.

And when COVID-19 cases increased in other areas that had not been placed under tighter restrictions, the President ordered the delivery of more vaccine doses to these places, Roque said.

He asked Treñas to ensure compliance with minimum public health standards in Iloilo City, which is one of the ways to prevent coronavirus infections.

“I can assure Mayor Treñas that, unfortunately, when it comes to the increase in cases, the solution is to wear masks, wash hands and observe physical distancing,” he said. INQ