Lawyer Julius Caesar Entise, deputy chief of the Emergency Operations Center in Mandaue City. CDN Digital photo | Mary Rose Sagarino
MANDAUE CITY, Cebu—The Mandaue City Government is now preparing for the effects of the increasing number of COVID-19 cases.
Lawyer Julius Caesar Entise, deputy chief of the Emergency Operations Center, said the EOC conducted a meeting with all its members on Tuesday, August 3, 2021, about the continuous increase of COVID cases and hospitals getting full.
Entise said they already agreed to order 100 oxygen tanks in anticipation of the expected increase in demand of oxygen tanks for patients experiencing difficulty in breathing either because of COVID-19 or not.
The oxygen tanks will supplement the 50 oxygen tanks at the Mandaue City Hospital. The additional tanks that are already set to be delivered to the city will be put at the hospital.
He said the number of patients experiencing difficulty in breathing in the city has increased recently.
“Per observation, we have several patients but we have no hospital to bring them to. Our ambulances are going around the city looking for hospitals and in the end mauli ra sa balay kay walay hospital kay puno na gyud. We’ve lost patients for that reason nga walay kadad-an sa ospital, namatyan pod og mga pasyente ana, so in order to prevent this thing from occurring again, all we need is to give supplemental oxygen for the time being. At least, we can give some sort of relief to those having a difficult time in breathing,” said Entise.
Dr. Jake Ian Seno, the city hospital chief, said that the hospital is already in its full capacity.
Seno said that currently, there are 25 patients admitted at the city hospital, 18 of whom are COVID patients.
He said supposedly, the hospital’s capacity for COVID patients is only 10 but because of the increase of cases and the situation of other hospitals, they had to increase the capacity.
They also already installed tents outside the hospital for those patients waiting to have a bed inside the hospital.
Seno admitted that they have a hard time transferring COVID patients experiencing moderate to severe symptoms of the virus to other hospitals as even tertiary hospitals have already refused to accept patients because they no longer have available beds.
“Ang atoang gibuhat karun is kung unsa ato’ng makaya nga mabuhat sa ospital mao ato gibuhat, tanan preventive measures aron lang di sila ma refer,” said Seno.
Entise added that the EOC also agreed to reactivate the clustered barangay isolation facilities as a step down facility or staging area for patients waiting to be admitted to hospitals.
They already identified barangays and are set to conduct ocular inspection in Cubacub, Canduman, Casuntingan, Subangdaku, among others.
Based on data from the Department of Health, Mandaue City, as of Monday, August 2, 2021, has 1,059 active cases of COVID-19.
/bmjo
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