COVID-19 hits over 30 Quezon hospital frontliners

LUCENA CITY – Seventeen doctors and 20 other health workers at the Quezon Medical Center (QMC) here contracted the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

“All of them did not require hospitalization,” Dr. Rolando Padre, QMC director, said in a phone interview on Saturday night.

The infected QMC health care workers were all fully vaccinated and had booster shots.

Padre said three of the infected doctors, including himself, have already recovered.

He said 13 nurses were also infected.. QMC is a provincial-government-run medical facility located in the capital of the province.

The QMC Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Ob-Gyne) and the pediatric wards have been temporarily closed.

“Majority of their medical staff are down with COVID-19 symptoms. They are on quarantine and may need to be isolated if they test positive,” Padre said.

However, all other departments at the said hospital will continue to operate.

“But the OPD (out-patient-department) will adopt hybrid consultation mode, the first option being teleconsultation. Face-to-face consultation will be by appointment,” the hospital chief said.

“All these measures are adopted to lessen risks to our patients without denying them the services they need,” Padre emphasized.

The local government of Tiaong town will also temporarily stop the vaccination roll-out in the locality starting January 17 due to COVID-19 infection of local health workers.

On Saturday, January 15, Quezon recorded an alarming 244 new COVID-19 cases, the highest single-day tally since Sept. 21 last year when it logged 309 cases.

The surge brought the current number of active infections across the province to 1,459, health authorities said.

The infected patients have been placed in several hospitals in the province and local government isolation centers while some are under home quarantine.

 gsg