{"id":261550,"date":"2020-07-14T07:51:01","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T11:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=261550"},"modified":"2020-07-14T07:51:01","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T11:51:01","slug":"ph-wont-run-out-of-hospitals-for-covid-19-patients-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/07\/14\/ph-wont-run-out-of-hospitals-for-covid-19-patients-palace\/","title":{"rendered":"PH won\u2019t run out of hospitals for Covid-19 patients: Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque made this remark after several hospitals announced that they could no longer accept new Covid-19 patients due to full bed capacity. (PCOO file photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Malaca\u00f1ang on Tuesday assured that the country would not run out of hospitals to accommodate coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients even after a health official said the critical care capacity for intensive care unit (ICU) beds has reached its \u201cdanger zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque made this remark after several hospitals announced that they could no longer accept new Covid-19 patients due to full bed capacity.<\/p>\n

Roque said Health Undersecretary for Special Concerns Leopoldo \u201cBong\u201d Vega is making sure that all Covid-19 patients would be referred to a particular hospital to receive treatment.<\/p>\n

Vega, who first disclosed that the number of ICU beds has reached its danger zone, heads a new unit called Hospital One Incident Command, which sets up Covid-19 bed allocation guidelines to ensure effective minimum and surge capacity in public and private hospitals.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall,\u00a0sapat-sapat naman po ang ating mga<\/em>\u00a0hospital beds\u00a0kasama na na po diyan iyong ating mga<\/em>\u00a0ICU beds. So,\u00a0kung puno na ang ospital na gusto ninyong pasukan, sasabihin naman kayo kung saan pupuwedeng magpunta kung kinakailangan ng<\/em>\u00a0ICU care (Overall, we have enough hospital beds, including ICU beds. So if a hospital is full, you will be referred to another hospital if necessary),\u201d Roque said in a virtual Palace briefing.<\/p>\n

Citing Vega, he said the country\u2019s critical care capacity is currently at 70 percent, which is still \u201cmanageable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roque said Vega has begun asking hospitals to increase the allotted number of ICU beds for Covid-19 patients.<\/p>\n

Currently, hospitals are mandated to allocate 30 percent of their beds for Covid-19 patients.<\/p>\n

He also appealed to private hospitals that claimed that they have reached the full capacity of their beds dedicated to Covid-19 patients to expand the capacity further.<\/p>\n

\u201cNakikiusap po ngayon ang gobyerno kung puno na iyong<\/em>\u00a030-percent capacity for ICU beds,\u00a0kung pupuwede gawing<\/em>\u00a050-percent capacity\u00a0naman<\/em>\u00a0for Covid patients (The government appeals to private hospitals, if you have reached your 30-percent capacity for ICU beds, can you expand it to 50-percent capacity for Covid patients),\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

As of Monday, there are a total of 57,006 confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country, of which 20,371 are recoveries and 1,599 are deaths.<\/p>\n

Treatment czar<\/strong><\/p>\n

Following questions over Vega being named as \u201ctreatment czar\u201d instead of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, Roque said the former was appointed as such after being named head of a new unit called Hospital One Incident Command.<\/p>\n

\u201cKaya po tinawag naming siyang<\/em>\u00a0treatment czar\u00a0kasi siya yung nagko<\/em>-coordinate\u00a0sa lahat ng mga ospital na kung saan po pupuwede pumunta ang mga pasyente<\/em>\u00a0(He is called treatment czar because he coordinates with hospitals where patients can get treatment),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Vega was appointed to the health department after President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to fire officials over the delay in the compensation of health care workers infected with Covid-19.<\/p>\n

However, Duterte has also repeatedly vouched for Duque\u2019s integrity amid criticism over his handling of the Covid-19 situation in the country.<\/p>\n

Roque earlier said Duterte praised Vega for modernizing the Southern Philippines Medical Center, a hospital in Davao City, which the President himself has frequented.<\/p>\n

However, he said he does not know if Duterte wanted to replace Duque with Vega.<\/p>\n

Vega declined to comment when asked if he was willing to become health secretary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I don\u2019t think I can answer it right now. That\u2019s too theoretical. I am just preparing myself for undersecretary so I cannot fathom being secretary at this time,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Malaca\u00f1ang on Tuesday assured that the country would not run out of hospitals to accommodate coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":259982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261551,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261550\/revisions\/261551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}