By Joseph B.A. Marzan
Department of Health-Western Visayas Center for Health Development (DOH-WV CHD) Regional Director Marlyn Convocar on Wednesday went into defense mode over recent changes in their case bulletin templates which no longer include details and status of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.
Starting Aug 14, 2020, the DOH-WV CHD changed their reporting template as it no longer includes patient details which indicate their patient code, age, sex, residence, and status.
In a press conference, Dr. Convocar stressed that the DOH does recognize the need for information but that will only depend on the public’s use of the data.
She added that people should just consider themselves infectious with or without detailed information in the case bulletins.
“There are many reasons why the public wishes to have detailed information in our case bulletins. We recognize the importance of data, especially in research and making of studies that make use of detailed case bulletin data. I believe that it depends on the needs of the public on what they use the data for. Will this improve and will alert on the spread of disease? Regardless of the results of the case bulletin, if you consider yourself infectious, you should protect yourself, and you should protect others that they wouldn’t be infected,” Dr. Convocar said.
Dr. Convocar reiterated that the changes were based on instructions from DOH Central Office in Manila.
She explained that the change in the reporting template was an agreement reached by the Assistant Regional Directors (ARDs), Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Units (RESUs), and the Central Office’s Epidemiology Bureau (EB), in one of their weekly meetings.
“We in the DOH have been instructed to follow the template, as I have mentioned in my advisory, for the purpose of unity and synchronization. Coming up with this decision was done through a regular meeting of the RESU, the EB in Manila, and all ARDs nationwide. They discuss this on a weekly basis, and the decision to come up with one uniform template was a decision of all RESUs in the Philippines. In fact, when I reviewed their minutes of the meetings, I saw that Manila was even suggesting that we can start the template on August 1, but we started on August 14,” she said.
She defended the shift to the new template, repeating that this was based on instructions coming from Manila
“We in the DOH, me personally, I don’t decide that this is what we do because that is what I want. We are doing it because there are instructions from Manila because it was from the central office and we also saw that need to have similar data. There’s nothing wrong with that, that the data we report should be what the central office is reporting to be able to synchronize them,” Dr. Convocar said.
Dr. Convocar responded to one reporter’s remarks regarding the right to access information by telling the media that they should “just ask from the local government units (LGUs)”, because “they report faster”.
She cited their latest press release, which reiterated that the laboratories can report directly to the LGUs, the attending physicians, and/or the patients.
“As we comply with the directives of Manila to have uniform data, our advice will not stop you to look into the data of these positives. We made instructions to the province to issue their own provincial case bulletins. Why are we referring you to them? Because the data of the provinces are faster than ours. When we synchronize and ensure that our data is uniform, there is a one-day lag on data of the region compared to the province. With our recent issuance, the data of the positive and negative will be directly given to the individual and the [LGU]. In that case, if the province collates all the data, it can report ahead of us, because we are still collating,” she said.
Dr. Convocar added that this was already being implemented in all provinces except for Iloilo province.
“In fact, it’s being implemented in all the provinces and HUCs except Iloilo province. You surf all the provincial case bulletin of all the provinces except Iloilo province, you can find all the details there. We prescribed that this will be implemented in all, but we can expect that the six provinces will comply. In fact, [Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas] reports to you first before they release their bulletin. Sometimes, at our end at DOH, we also want to know the importance of this data to you, as broadcasters. How important is the data really?” she said.
She added further that the LGUs’ faster reporting would enable them to respond quickly, and if that the media still needed information from the regional office, it can ask from the Western Visayas RESU.
“Another reason why we want to direct it from the laboratory to the LGU is for them to be able to institute containment measures and contact tracing. Our reports can have a one-day delay. It does not end that way. You can still have access to these details. We talked this out with Dr. Alonsabe. You can always ask RESU for the details. In fact, when we finalize all of this, we can provide you with the link of details, but we will not show it in the case bulletin,” she said.
