Bacolod City has asked for additional COVID-19 vaccines from the Department of Health with an increase in hospital frontliners wanting to be vaccinated, City Administrator Em Ang said Wednesday, March 10.
“There has been an increase in the vaccine uptake,” Ang, who is also executive director of the Bacolod City Emergency Operations Center (EOC), said.
The DOH has promised to send Bacolod City more Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines for its hospital frontliners, Ang said.
The Bacolod City EOC has also been asked to provide a list of its hospital senior citizen frontliners who will be provided with AstraZeneca vaccines by Monday, she added.
Five hospitals in Bacolod City have submitted a list of 1,160 additional health care workers wanting to be vaccinated, she said.
The fact that prominent doctors with very good practice were the first to volunteer to be vaccinated must have convinced more health care workers to be vaccinated with the Sinovac vaccines, Ang said.
The requests for additional vaccines were for Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH) – 250 health care workers, Riverside Medical Center Inc. (RMCI) – 250, The Doctors’ Hospital Inc. (TDHI) – 150, Bacolod Queen of Mercy Hospital (BQMH) – 160 and Bacolod Adventist Medical Center (BAMC) – 350.
Vaccines sent to Bacolod City last week were for 3,150 frontliners, but those who initially signed up for the Sinovac vaccines were 2,350 employees from seven Bacolod hospitals.
So 1,600 doses of the Sinovac vaccines for 800 more Bacolod hospital frontliners were turned over by the DOH to Negros Occidental hospitals Wednesday, March 10.
The initial number of Bacolod frontliners counted for vaccination at CLMMRH were 900, RMCI – 605, TDHI – 95, BQMH – 116, BAMC – 148, South Bacolod General Hospital – 355, Metro Bacolod Hospital and Medical Center – 58, and 34 other hospital personnel who were vaccinated at the city Emergency Operations Center, Dr. Chris Sorongon, Bacolod Emergency Operations Center deputy for medical data and analysis, said Tuesday, March 9.
All seven Bacolod hospitals this week began the mass vaccination of their employees who volunteered for the Sinovac vaccines.
The total number of Bacolod hospital frontliners vaccinated with Sinovac vaccines as of Wednesday, March 10, are 1,274, Ang said.
The Department of Health in Region 6 received more COVID-19 vaccines Wednesday for distribution, Jane Juanico, DOH 6 infectious disease cluster head, said.*