News Roundup 01 April 2021
Apr 01, 2021 • 4 min Read
With COVID-19 patients being turned away, Robredo urges check on hospital bed shortage | PHILSTAR.COM – Vice President Leni Robredo renewed her call to the Department of Health and the government’s coronavirus task force to look into the shortage of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients. In a Facebook post on Wednesday night, Robredo said he saw new coverage of the recently held House of Representative hearings, where the DOH maintained that hospitals are not fully yet and that “93% of COVID patients have mild symptoms and do not need hospitalization.” DOH data from case bulletin on Wednesday showed that in Metro Manila, 79% of ICU beds are utilized, 69% for isolation beds and 61% for ward beds. Health authorities reported 6,128 new COVID-19 cases, pushing national caseload to 747,288. Active cases were at a record high on Wednesday at 130,245 but the case bulletin noted almost 98.4% are mild and asymptomatic. But the vice president said the accounts of families seeking hospitals for their sick loved ones is different from DOH data. She added that they have been receiving distress calls from families of COVID-19 patients who cannot be admitted to hospitals in the past week. “We have read how many have already died inside tents outside hospitals, waiting to be admitted to the ERs, in ambulances while in transit, at home without receiving any medical help,” Robredo said. She recalled that she has recommended in the past to expand hospital capacity by “setting up field hospitals, hiring more health care workers and paying them well, making sure hospitals are equipped with everything necessary to treat patients.”
COVID-19 patients from Metro Manila swamp hospitals in Calabarzon | INQUIRER.NET – Public and private hospitals in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) are running at critical or near capacity, as the region takes on spillover COVID-19 cases from Metro Manila while tackling a surge of its own. At the Batangas Medical Center, a tertiary Department of Health (DOH) hospital, recently admitted were “5-6” COVID patients, from Metro Manila over a hundred kilometers away from Batangas City, Dr. Eduardo Janairo, DOH regional chief, said on Wednesday. Overrun hospitals in Metro Manila are crying for reinforcements, with Dr. Jaime Almora, president of the Philippine Hospital Association, saying in a television interview on Wednesday that the fight against COVID-19 had been lost. “It’s full everywhere. At night, at dawn, we couldn’t find a hospital to refer [patients],” said Janairo, who said Batangas Medical Center had just lost another patient. The DOH would soon put up tents outside the hospitals for patients waiting for admission into the emergency rooms or intensive care units, and convert the Southern Tagalog Regional Hospital in Bacoor City, Cavite, to exclusively handle COVID-19 cases. “These are proposals (to open tents) but where do we get the staff to man [these] expansions,” said Dr. Jose de Grano, president of the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc. who lives in Lipa City, Batangas.
‘Si Lugaw’ not essential? DILG official is ‘pabigat’, a liability — Robredo spokesperson | Manila Bulletin – If Vice President Leni Robredo is “non-essential,” her spokesperson said on Thursday, April 1, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III is “pabigat (a liability).” In a Twitter post, Robredo’s spokesman Ibarra Gutierrez clapped back at Densing for his controversial “Si Lugaw” remark during a One PH interview Wednesday night. Gutierrez said Densing was the epitome of Duterte administration’s pandemic response for spending more time attacking Robredo rather than attending to the country’s COVID-19-related problems. “With cases rising, hospitals full, and millions struggling, instead of doing real work he makes ‘jokes,’ plays politics, & bashes someone who’s actually doing the job they’re supposed to,” he said. “Di lang ito ‘non-essential.’ Ito ay pabigat (He is not only a non-essential. He is a liability),” Gutierrez stressed.
Philippines enters April with 8,920 new COVID-19 cases, total at 756,199 | PHILSTAR.COM – The Philippines saw 8,920 new coronavirus cases on the first day of April, after record-high increases under a surge that began last month. Thursday’s development pushed the country’s overall count to 756,199. It is not clear yet if the additional infections already include results from antigen tests within ‘NCR Plus,’ which the Department of Health said would now be counted but has yet to say officially when.
– Active cases: 138,948 or 18.4% of the total
– Recoveries: 205, bringing the number to 603,948
– Deaths: 6, or now 13,303 in total
