INSPECTION. Personnel of the Lindi Hotel show one of its 34 rooms to Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center director Dr. Ricardo Runez Jr. (2nd from right in white) and city administrator Bonifacio dela Pena (middle in black) on during an inspection on Friday (March 20, 2020). The owners of the hotel offered the facility to be used as a confinement center for Covid-19 patients under investigation in the city. (Photo courtesy of Baguio PIO)
BAGUIO CITY – A hotel here is offering its facility with 34 rooms as a confinement center for patients under investigation (PUIs) for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), Mayor Benjamin Magalong said on Friday.
Magalong said the owners of Lindi Hotel, which is 600 meters from both Baguio General Hospital and the Department of Health-Cordillera office, are offering their rooms to serve the purpose.
“We want to thank the owners of Lindi Hotel by providing its rooms for Covid-19 PUIs,” Magalong said during a media forum.
Owners of the Lindi Hotel, a two-story building on Legarda Road, asked not to be named, Magalong said.
Magalong appealed to the owners of the former Santo Nino Hospital on P. Burgos Road, which has been vacant after its closure some five years ago, to lend the area as a confinement center.
It is owned by the Fernandez family, who owns the Baguio Central University and honored early this year with a street named after the school’s founder Margarita Fernandez.
Magalong said the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) might not be lifted any time soon, with the way things are going.
“I am not that all optimistic that this will not be over in one month, not optimistic with two, three could be probable,” Magalong said.
During the special city council meeting on Tuesday, the Local Finance Committee said the money could be augmented coming from the city’s PHP2.2-billion annual budget, but this needs legislation, “especially if the ECQ will be extended beyond the one month.”
On the same day, a total of PHP2.5 million was released from the city’s PHP29 million quick response fund (QRF) which was distributed to the 128 barangay heads as an initial salvo for the food distribution for the “poorest of the poor.”
Another PHP101 million was accessed by the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (CDRRMC) to help Baguio residents as a 24-hour curfew had been imposed to stop social contact.
Magalong said the second week will be even more crucial as food will be more difficult to get.
“Baka gutom na tao by that time (People could go hungry by that time),” he said.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the local government has already distributed food packs with PHP450 worth of food consisting of milk, rice, noodles, and canned goods.
“That is good only for three days for a family of five,” Magalong said even as the city’s quick response fund and that of the barangay will not be enough to buy food for the more than 350,000 residents.
“Soon, we need to augment that,” said Magalong referring to the QRF.
After week 1 scenario
Magalong said the city needs to stock more on alcohol, face masks and the like in the next days.
For alcohol, stocks come regularly but the first to run low due to high demand, the city has ordered in large volumes.
The city is also set to get 500,000 face masks while a disinfection tent will soon be arriving to be used by health workers, for them to be safer from getting infected.
Magalon said there will be more Covid-19 test kits so that there will be “mass testing (even) if we buy.”
To date, there are only 100 test kits which are not used exclusively by residents but even from other provinces with the Baguio General Hospital as a secondary national testing center of the Department of Health.
Magalong is also awaiting the four packs of test kits from the SM Foundation. Each pack contains 250 test kits or a total of 1,000.
Magalong said they are also awaiting a CT scan like apparatus from Huawei that has an artificial intelligence analyzer for the lungs.
As for food supply, Magalong has already asked the city’s big supermarkets to have rolling stores that will cater to the food needs of the 128 barangays covered by 12 districts.
Each district, consisting of five to eight barangays, will have a rolling store. (PNA)
