LUCENA CITY—At least 58 hospital frontliners in Gumaca town in Quezon province contracted COVID-19, the local chief executive disclosed Wednesday.
Mayor Webster Letargo, citing the latest data from the local Inter-Agency Task Force, revealed that as of 2:45 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 15, the number of active COVID-19 cases in the town rose to 101 from 72 the day before.
“58 of the active cases are hospital frontliners in our three hospitals. They are employees, health care workers, and doctors,” Letargo said in an online interview.
Letargo said the government-owned Gumaca District Hospital has 25 active cases, the RAKKK Prophet Medical Center has 29, and San Diego de Alcala general Hospital has four. The last two are private medical facilities.
“But the local government and our local health unit are on top of the situation,” Letargo stressed.
He said though that while some of their local health care workers and contact tracers are under home quarantine, “they are still performing their tasks even without a salary increase and other benefits that they are supposed to receive.”
He lamented that the local government legislative council has yet to approve the proposed 2021 budget.
Due to the limited budget, the local government workers, who are classified as ‘job order,’ will render only four days work in a week, Letargo said.
On Wednesday, the Gumaca District Hospital announced that it had to impose more limitations on their services “due to the surge in COVID-19 infections, and [that] most of our hospital staff, including our doctors are either with symptoms or infected with COVID.”
It said “no surgical patients will be admitted, [and] also no obstetrical delivery will be done.”
Their out-patient-department will be closed for two weeks starting Sept. 15.
On Friday, Sept. 10, Dr. Sonny Ching, GDC hospital chief, announced that their rooms for COVID-19 patients reached capacity.
The RAKKK and San Diego hospitals have yet to issue statements on their respective Facebook pages.
Quezon, which remains under general community quarantine with heightened restrictions, has recorded 22,689 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic started last year, according to the Integrated Provincial Health Office in a post on its Facebook Tuesday afternoon.
The IPHO also said the province has 2,349 active cases, recoveries at 19,232, and a death toll of 1,108.
The Department of Health in Calabarzon said Quezon recorded 37 COVID-19 Delta variant cases as of Sept. 5.