Halfway house, alternative dialysis centers for renal patients eyed

Capitol considers ways that can lessen renal patients' risk of infection to COVID-19

Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia meets with municipal and city health officers to discuss COVID-19 measures and protocols. |screengrabbed from FB video

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu provincial government is considering the establishment of halfway houses and alternative dialysis centers outside Cebu City to lessen risks of coronavirus disease infection for patients who will need to undergo dialysis treatment.

In a meeting at the Capitol on Thursday, April 30, 2020, the municipal and city health officers raised the concern for the safety of their constituents who continued to frequent Cebu City to undergo dialysis treatment.

Read more: COVID-19 claims Carcar City boy: Question remains on where he got the virus?

This is after two kidney disease patients were recently found positive for COVID-19. The two patients, a 17-year-old boy from Carcar City and a 58-year-old man from Daanbantayan, last April 25 and 26, respectively.

Governor Gwendolyn Garcia also said some had raised concerns that the patients contracted the virus while undergoing treatment in the city.

Read more: Gwen: Daanbantayan, Minglanilla record first COVID-19 case

Although the province has already shut its borders to Cebu City, which Garcia refers to as the “epicenter” of the infection in Cebu, the dialysis patients and other persons needing medical treatment in the city were exempted from the border restriction.

Garcia said the risk for the dialysis patients was “a real concern” considering that their preexisting condition would make them immunocompromised or more vulnerable to complications from the COVID-19 infection.

Dr. Jaime Bernadas, regional director of the Department of Health in Central Visayas, suggested that halfway houses would be established for the dialysis patients so that they would no longer need to go back to their hometowns after their dialysis procedure.

Garcia also said they would look into working with medical facilities outside Cebu City that might instead cater for the patients’ treatment needs without them going to the city.

During the meeting, Garcia said it would be more favorable if there would be medical facilities both for the northern and southern part of the province that had the capacity to perform dialysis procedures so the patients would no longer need to go to Cebu City.

“We will see how this can be done. We will also need to determine how many patients are there that need to undergo dialysis,” Garcia said in a mixed English and Cebuano.

While neither the halfway houses nor the alternative dialysis centers were in place, Garcia said the immediate action that the local government units could do would be to use their ambulances in bringing the patients to Cebu City when undergoing treatment in order to minimize the chances of contact during the span of their stay here.

Garcia added that the dialysis patients should have full protective gears while in the city to protect them from the coronavirus infection./dbs