Palace spokesperson Secretary Harry Roque (File photo)
DUMAGUETE CITY – Palace spokesperson Secretary Harry Roque on Monday said temporary health workers may be sent to Negros Oriental and other areas in the country that are currently experiencing high cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
This, after two groups of medical doctors in the province issued individual statements on Sunday seeking the implementation of a higher form of quarantine restriction as Covid-19 cases in Negros Oriental surged over the past weeks.
All of the regions are being monitored by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) and the Department of Health, and quarantine classifications are being revisited monthly, with areas placed under higher or lower classification as needed, Roque said.
If there is a “pressing reason” to place an area under a higher quarantine classification, the government no longer has to wait for the next meeting of the IATF and that is what happened to Iloilo City, he added.
The DOH and IATF are keeping a tight watch on these places and apart from the declaration of higher quarantine classification, additional testing and vaccines may also be sent over. “And learning from the experience of Cebu, kung talagang nagkukulang ng mga health professionals, magpapadala din tayo (if there is a lack of health professionals, then we shall be sending them),” Roque said.
The Palace official is in this provincial capital city, for the Central Visayas regional peace and order council meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte in attendance.
Records at the DOH in Region 7 show that Negros Oriental had the highest number of coronavirus cases on Sunday, and the surge in the past weeks has caused alarm among medical practitioners, who expressed fear that the “health system will collapse” as hospitals are already on the verge of their limits on isolation bed capacities. (PNA)
