CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella is asking the Department of Health (DOH) to provide the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) with hemodialysis units so the hospital can accommodate dialysis patients amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In a letter to Health Secretary Francisco Duque, III, the mayor appealed to the state health agency to make VSMMC eligible for the DOH’s Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFECP) that provides hemodialysis units to public hospitals.
In particular, Labella is asking for 20 units of Hemodialysis Package that will be set up at SM City Cebu in Barangay Mabolo.
The mall has offered a space for the city to use as a dialysis center for the patients, so these patients will no longer have to go to the hospitals and risk getting infected with the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).
“In our relentless fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, we are also currently faced with the problem of managing non-COVID patients and the need to prevent possible non-COVID morbidities and mortalities brought by the disruption of public health services,” said the mayor.
Labella is also thankful to SM City Cebu’s generous offer of a space to be used for the facility, which will be both comfortable and safe for the dialysis patients.
The mayor hopes for a favorable response from the DOH so that people suffering from other illnesses besides COVID-19 will not continue to suffer amid the overwhelmed hospitals in the city.
In previous statements, Duque said that the utilization rate of Cebu City’s medical facilities is at critical point.
The Interagency Task Force (IATF) has been focused on reducing this critical utilization rate of hospitals in the city. /bmjo