Gov’t in search of more medical staff during MECQ in COVID hotspots

MANILA, Philippines — The two-week “timeout” or reimposed stricter quarantine measures in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) hotspots critical will not “end the game” but will be used to hire thousands of healthcare workers, a Department of Health (DOH) official said Thursday.

“We are in need of almost 10,000 healthcare workers and this means that the call of timeout really means substitution,” DOH undersecretary and treatment czar Leopoldo Vega said in a press briefing.

“We’re not going to end the game, rather, we just have to find the fresh or new recruits into the system so that the efficiency of our healthcare workers will be there,” he added.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier heeded the call of medical frontliners to reimpose stricter quarantine measures in Metro Manila.

Medical frontliners called for a “timeout” as COVID-19 cases in the country continue to surge. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1315204/medical-frontliners-to-govt-time-out-revert-metro-manila-back-to-ecq

They also urged refining pandemic control strategies and address urgent conditions such as hospital workforce efficiency, transportation safety, workplace safety, among others.

DOH said it is tapping health workers from other regions to serve as a “substitution team” for those working in Metro Manila.

On Wednesday, co-chairperson of the government’s COVID-19 task force and Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said over 2,800 health workers are still needed to be hired in helping address the pandemic.

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