MANILA, Philippines — Amid the spike of COVID-19 infections, the country’s COVID-19 referral center is getting flooded with calls — up to over 300 a day in Metro Manila alone — from patients in search of health facilities.
Health Undersecretary and treatment czar Leopoldo Vega on Tuesday said the center, known as the One Hospital Command Center, gets an average of 350 to 370 calls a day starting in the last week of July, up from the average of about 100 calls a day from two weeks ago in Metro Manila.
He added that the number of calls peaked at 472 on Sunday.
“Ito ‘yung napapansin namin. Sa pagtaas ng new cases at uptick ng cases dito sa Metro Manila, tumataas na rin ‘yung calls namin coming from the public para ma-coordinate ang kanilang transfer o ma-refer sa isolation facility,” he said in a Palace briefing.
(This is our observation. In the rise of cases comes also the rise of calls coming from the public to coordinate their transfer or referral to isolation facilities.)
The One Hospital Command Center, connects and coordinates patients who need medical attention to hospitals and health care facilities.
Vega said the referral center currently has 110 personnel manning the center, including call-takers and medical coordinators.
The referral center can be reached through hotline 1555, 02-886-505-00, 0915-777-7777, or 0919-977-3333.
The operations manager of the referral center, Dr. Bernadett Velasco, earlier said the center received an average of 600 calls a day in August, peaking at 730 calls, from Metro Manila, Calabarzon, and Central Luzon.
Amid the highly contagious COVID-19 Delta variant threat, the Philippines is now back “high risk” classification for COVID-19, the Department of Health (DOH) earlier said.
The National Capital Region is also considered under high risk classification, with its moderate risk two-week growth rate and high risk average daily attack rate.
The DOH also said a total of 236 healthcare facilities, including 25 hospitals in Metro Manila, are currently classified as “critical risk” in terms of utilization.
This means these facilities’ isolation, ward, and intensive unit care beds, as well as mechanical ventilators, are over 85% occupied already.
Vega said that region-wide, the health care utilization in Mero Manila is on the “threshold of moderate risk” but there are some hospitals that are already under high risk category in terms of intensive care unit capacity.
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