The Bacolod City Health Office (CHO) will no longer accommodate patients showing COVID-19 symptoms starting October 26.
This is to protect other patients – especially pregnant women – from contracting the viral disease, according to City Administrator Em Ang, executive director and deputy for administration and operations of the Bacolod City Emergency Operations Center-Task Force (EOC-TF).
“In our daily reports, there are always pregnant women who are tested positive. We are making a study on that right now. In fact, we are planning to meet with the Philippine Obstetrics and Gynecologist Society (POGS) in the next few days; we’d like to find out what is causing that,” Ang said.
Pregnant women are among the majority of patients who regularly seek consultation at the CHO’s lying-in clinic.
By enjoining the CHO from receiving patients “with influenza-like symptoms like cough, fever, or anybody who manifests symptoms related to COVID-19,” the EOC-TF is hoping to “minimize the transmission among pregnant women” in Bacolod, Ang stressed.
What will happen to patients with COVID-19 symptoms? In line with the triaging scheme, they will instead be accommodated at the Bacolod Respiratory Out-Patient (BRO) Center, the city administrator explained.
“The BRO Center will be our catchment area,” she added.
Inter-Agency Task Force-Visayas chief implementer Mel Feliciano said that 20 percent of “probables,” or those patients with flu-like symptoms who subjected themselves to swabbing, have indeed tested positive for COVID-19.
Feliciano, who was among the personnel deployed by the Office of the President to manage the spread of COVID-19 in Cebu City earlier this year, oversees the operation of the Bacolod EOC-TF.*