Mayor Evelio “Bing” Leonardia said on Tuesday, September 21, that like many hospitals, treatment facilities and local governments all over the country, Bacolod City is also losing a lot of health frontliners due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Leonardia, in a press release, said he has already written the regional office of the Department of Health (DOH) whose assistance he sought to hire more nurses and other medical frontliners to attend to COVID cases.
“We are still awaiting DOH’s reply to our request regarding additional health workers. We also asked the health department for machines and equipment such as ventilators,” he said.
He does not have the absolute number on the actual shortage of health workers, Leonardia said, but pointed out that with 275 beds allotted for COVID patients in various hospitals, only 230 personnel are available for now.
Hospital occupancy, he continued, has already reached critical level at 87 percent.
“That is why we already sounded the alarm bells to the DOH,” he said.
COVID infections in Bacolod averaged 100.38 per day for the month of September, Leonardia said.
“It is apparently already the Delta variant in action,” he pointed out.
Leonardia also said the local government had been meeting with hospitals with the occupancy rate now placed at critical level.
Bacolod City, through the EOC and the COVID-19 Vaccination Council, had already fully inoculated almost 280,000 residents or 30 percent of the population targeted for vaccination, he said.
Thankfully, he said, Bacolod continues to receive its supply of vaccines that’s why the LGU was able to step up its vaccination drive, Leonardia added.*