Mandaue’s 5 PTVs ready to bring elderly, asymptomatic patients to hospitals 

The five Mitsubishi L300 are turned over to the Mandaue City Disaster Risk Reduction Office. | Photo courtesy of Mandau PIO.

OLANGO ISLAND, Lapu-Lapu City — With the five new Patient Transport Vehicles (PTVs) procured by the Mandaue City government, residents can expect faster medical response, patient transportation, and ambulance services.

Lawyer John Eddu Ibañez, executive secretary of Mayor Jonas Cortes, said in an interview with CDN Digital on December 25 that the PTVs would help in medical responses so that the ambulances would not be overused.

“Kani man gud mga ambulansiya kinahanglan ni sila i maintain pirme, so magtuyok-tuyok, mag rotation ni sila. Dili ingon ang walo ang magdagan, ma stretch too thin gyud sila. Mao ning karun nagpasalamat mi nga naa na ning lima ka mga patient transport vehicle para dili dayun magasto ang ato’ng mga ambulansiya sa uban’g purpose,” said Ibañez.

(Our ambulances need to be constantly maintained so they would go on rotation. It would not be that the eight ambulances would be used at the same time because then the ambulances would be stretched too thin. That is why we are grateful that we have this five patient transport vehicles so that our ambulances would not be overworked.)

The Mandaue City Disaster Risk Reduction Office receives five Mitsubishi L300, which is a patient transport vehicle or PTV. | Mandaue PIO

The patient transport vehicles or PTVs will be used for residents such as senior citizens, who will need to be transported to the hospital for checkups, asymptomatic COVID-19 patients to be transported to the city’s isolation unit, and to those patients who will not need not serious medical care and to be brought to the hospital.

Ibañez said that the city had eight ambulances and others were used for COVID-19 response, but there would be times when these ambulances would be used for medical response, and they would be delayed to respond because these ambulances would need to be disinfected first.

“Kani man gud ato’ng COVID-19 nato nga transport kay ambulansya. Kinahanglan baya human magtransport sa COVID (patient) mo down time og duha ka oras ika idisinfect mao nang instead nga magamit pa sa mga emergency purposes niya magdown time siya so mao tong dili na nato gamiton tong ambulansiya for COVID, kani nang patient transport vehicle,” he said.

(Our COVID-19 transport is an ambulance. Before this can be used for emergency purposes or other than transporting COVID-19 patients, the vehicles would need to be disinfected so these would take a downtime for the vehicles by at least two hours. But with the patient transport vehicles, ambulances would no longer be used for COVID-19 patients.)

The five PTVs were delivered last Wednesday, December 23, 2020, worth P1 million each.

These vehicles will be managed by the Mandaue City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MCDRRMO). 

“After COVID, next budget allocation, palitan og pang ambulance nga gamit kay dako man ning [Mitsubishi] L300,” he said.

(After COVID, our next budget allocation, allot a budget to purchase equipment for the ambulance because the [Mitsubishi] L300 is spacious.)

On the other hand, the 2,383 teaching and non-teaching personnel in Mandaue City received P10,000 cash assistance from the local government on Wednesday, December 23, 2020 at the barangay Subangdaku elementary school. /dbs