Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon raised the alarm on state of the country’s health care system following the Department of Health’s (DOH) report that hospitals, particularly in Metro Manila, are reaching its “danger zone” as 82.2% of their total COVID-19 bed capacity are already occupied.
“It’s a cause for alarm. Hospital beds are running out. Patients were dying while waiting for hospital beds. Patients are already spreading the virus while waiting for their test results,” Drilon said in a statement on Wednesday.
“These are the issues that millions of Filipinos, myself included, wanted to hear from the President’s 5th State of the Nation Address,” he stressed.
Drilon is also raising the alarms over the Health Department’s report that hospitals especially in Calabarzon and Central Luzon are close to being overwhelmed with almost 50% of their bed capacity already occupied.
“What now, DOH? Naghihingalo na po ang ating mga hospital. Hihintayin pa ba natin na umabot sa 100% ang occupancy rate?,” Drilon asked.
“Nationally, our health system is close to being overwhelmed, our doctors, nurses and others who look after us in hospitals are growing tired. That is why we appeal to everyone to follow the minimum health standards, and to just stay at home if there’s nothing important to do outside,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said at a recent virtual presser..
Drilon, on the other hand, reiterated his call for a comprehensive plan to address the pandemic, the rising cases of infection and the effects of the pandemic to the economy.
“We need a concrete plan. Otherwise, we will not be able to move forward in this fight against COVID-19 pandemic. While the rest of the world are already on the road to recovery, the Philippines would always be back to square one without a comprehensive plan,” he stressed.
Drilon also hit the government’s “shotgun approach” in implementing the world’s longest and most stringent lockdowns, saying they were complete failures.
The Senate minority leader also criticized the government’s testing and contact tracing efforts saying these are “too slow.”
“Usad pagong po tayo sa testing and contact tracing. I don’t know where the bottleneck is but we really are too slow,” said Drilon.
Malacañang yesterday vowed an “invigorated” approach to the handling of the pandemic promising expanded testing efforts and building more isolation facilities
“Things will not be the same, there will be major changes in our response to the pandemic,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr. said.
“The people will now see the difference in the response that we will have. It is now thoroughly invigorated, and part of it is we build capacity and we now have the capacity to do what we wanted from the very beginning. The people will see that there will be expanded targeted testing, beyond numbers that they probably would not have imagined,” Roque added. (Rommel F. Lopez)