{"id":263832,"date":"2020-08-02T23:31:46","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T03:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=263832"},"modified":"2020-08-02T23:31:46","modified_gmt":"2020-08-03T03:31:46","slug":"soldier-on-duterte-tells-bone-weary-medical-front-liners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/08\/02\/soldier-on-duterte-tells-bone-weary-medical-front-liners\/","title":{"rendered":"Soldier on, Duterte tells \u2018bone-weary’ medical front-liners"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Recognizing the hardships of medical front-liners amid the surge in coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in the country, President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday encouraged them to soldier on for the people. (PNA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Recognizing the hardships of medical front-liners amid the surge in coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in the country, President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday encouraged them to soldier on for the people.<\/p>\n

In a late night public address, he acknowledged that healthcare workers were all \u201cbone-weary\u201d, saying he could not force them to work if they no longer felt like doing so.<\/p>\n

However, he said they were in the frontlines because the Covid-19 pandemic is a \u201cwar\u201d that they have been trained to fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cKung walang tutulong sa bansa at mga kababayan natin, sino ang aasahan ko? Sino ang aasahan natin na gumawa ng trabahong ito? Huwag kayo mawalan ng pag-asa<\/em>\u00a0(If nobody will help the country and our people, who will I rely on? Who will we rely on to do the job? Don\u2019t lose hope),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Heeding medical front-liners\u2019 call for a timeout, Duterte reverted Metro Manila and the provinces of Laguna, Rizal, Cavite and Bulacan to modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ).<\/p>\n

He vowed to hire additional healthcare workers; provide them with additional benefits, life insurance, free accommodation, free transportation, free and frequent testing; minimize movement by implementing quarantine passes; directing local government units (LGUs) to intensify the localized lockdowns; enforce guidelines for minimum health standards; and prioritize the use of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing.<\/p>\n

He said the government is doing \u201ceverything possible\u201d to alleviate the situation, to assist healthcare workers, and enhance the country\u2019s healthcare system.<\/p>\n

He appealed for more patience and fervor, discouraging healthcare workers from acting as if they were prepared to quit their jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou raise the spectacle\u00a0ng\u00a0<\/em>agony\u00a0ninyo<\/em>\u00a0(of your agony), you treat it as if you are ready to stop work,\u00a0\u2018wag naman ganun kasi kawawa ang mga kababayan natin<\/em>\u00a0(don\u2019t do that because our people would be pitiful),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also suggested that healthcare workers could relay their concerns directly to government next time because the government is always willing to listen.<\/p>\n

As cases of Covid-19 infected healthcare workers continue to rise, Duterte said his common-law wife Honeylet Avance\u00f1a has expressed interest to practice nursing again.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife has also volunteered to be a front-liner. May anak kami (We have a child). But since she is moved with a sense of\u2026kasi sabi niya nahihiya siya sa sarili niya (it\u2019s because she says she\u2019s ashamed). She\u2019s a nurse and yet itong ganitong it\u2019s a war against microbes. Who are our soldiers? The nurses and the doctors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Avance\u00f1a once worked as a nurse in the United States.<\/p>\n

He added that if healthcare workers refuse to \u201cgo the extra mile\u201d in the battle against Covid-19, he completely understood.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, at least 80 medical associations representing thousands of doctors signed a letter asking the government to implement a more stringent quarantine classification to prevent the collapse of the country’s healthcare system amid the prevailing health crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Recognizing the hardships of medical front-liners amid the surge in coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in the country, President Rodrigo …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":263833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263832","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263834,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263832\/revisions\/263834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}