By Lorenzo O. Lambatin Jr.
Safety nets in the fight against coronavirus disease 2019 in Western Visayas are in place.
Dr. Mary Jane Roches Juanico, Department of Health (DOH)-6 Medical Officer IV, said the region has adequate health workers, isolation facilities, cooperative Local Government Units (LGUs), with 10 COVID-19 laboratories.
With the declining virus cases, the region can now open for economy and its people free to move around but with strict adherence to basic public health protocol.
In her report to the second episode of Dagyaw Open Government Virtual Town Hall Meeting on Nov 20 themed “Ekonomiya kag Ikaayong Lawas sa Pandemya, Kamusta Na?”, Junico said Western Visayas employs strategies that can handle a worse case COVID-19 scenario backed up with prepared health facilities and personnel.
“We can say that Western Visayas is safe because the strategies (it use) included gate keeping indicators that ensure health care system will be able to handle even when there is a surge of cases.”
Juanico said the adequate number of isolation facility beds across the region contributed to the safety of Region 6.
She said the current occupancy rate is 33 percent with 67 percent still available.
“Health facilities served both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients with 1,402 dedicated COVID-19 beds. Of which, 69 percent is still available,” she noted.
According to Juanico, only 22 of the 118 mechanical ventilators are utilized for severe and critical COVID-19 cases.
As of Nov 21, Western Visayas has a total of 18,923 confirmed cases with 86.7 percent considered local cases.
Active cases totaled 1, 866 while 16,625 patients have recovered.
The region registered 522 deaths.
According to Juanico, the strong coordination and collaboration of the region’s LGUs with the assistance of the national agencies have improved and increased the local health system capacity.
“Though there are some areas of improvement, the full cooperation from all stakeholders will lead to the achievement of these goals and compliance to the gatekeeping indicators will minimize the region from reverting to higher and stricter quarantine classification,” she said. (PIA)
