DOH on Code White starting Thursday

The Department of Health (DOH) will start monitoring firecracker-related injuries on Thursday. (Photo by Des/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

MANILA — The Department of Health (DOH) will start monitoring firecracker-related injuries on Thursday.

“We will start our Code White by Dec. 21, 2017 and it will last until Jan. 5, 2018,” DOH Undersecretary Gerardo Bayugo told reporters Monday as health officials made the rounds of hospitals to check their preparedness to handle those injured by firecrackers during the holidays.

Code White alert refers to the readiness of hospital manpower, such as general and orthopedic surgeons, anesthesiologists, internists, operating room nurses, eye doctors, and eye, nose and throat (ENT), as well as head and neck specialists, to respond to any emergency situation.

“Our primary and secondary teams are ready. Our medicines are ready, and we are ready to receive patients,” said Bayugo as they visited the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Hospital in Manila.

Earlier, he and other DOH officials and staff members checked the Rizal Medical Center in Pasig City and Quirino Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City.

By mid-noon, they visited UST, proceeding to the emergency room to give the public a glimpse of how they check the hospital’s equipment to be used to attend to firecracker injuries, such as those for amputation and eggs as first aid for firecracker ingestion.

Bayugo also signified the department’s intention to include UST in its list of sentinel hospitals that would track down firecracker-related injuries and report an accurate figure.

“We are looking at expanding the number of hospitals that we would like to include in generating data on the casualties on firecrackers. Matagal na po itong 50 (sentinel) hospitals natin. And I think it is just proper that we expand and we increase the number, dahil dumami na po ang Pilipino, dumami na po ang ating ospital. Nabago na yung access distribution ng pasyente sa facilities,” he told reporters during a short press briefing at the hospital.

Meanwhile, during the visit, UST cardiologist and assistant medical director, Dr. Marcellus Francis Ramirez, noted a decrease in the number of firecracker-related injuries in recent years, mostly consisting of hand injuries.

“Actually last year, we had less than 10 and mostly minor injuries,” Ramirez said, citing that they also had asthma and other respiratory problems due to inhalation of smoke from firecrackers.

“Usually, this is also the time of the year that tumataas yung (when there is an increase in the) incidence of stroke,” he added.

The DOH is hoping to achieve zero firecracker-related injury this coming New Year, especially with the issuance of Executive Order (EO) No. 28 on the regulation of the use of firecrackers and other pyrotechnic devices.

Last January, the department announced a 32-percent decrease in firecracker-related injuries compared to the figure the year before.

A total of 630 fireworks-related injuries, with no mortality, were recorded by 50 sentinel hospitals from Nov. 21, 2016 to Jan. 5, 2017. Most of the injured were in the 10- to 14-year age bracket.

“This year, we hope to see more reduction because the EO has been signed last June,” Bayugo said. “We cannot be complacent. We must be ready since we cannot control the behavior of everyone.”