{"id":271956,"date":"2020-10-15T07:20:58","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T11:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=271956"},"modified":"2020-10-15T07:20:58","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T11:20:58","slug":"red-cross-halt-of-philhealth-funded-tests-wont-affect-ofws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/10\/15\/red-cross-halt-of-philhealth-funded-tests-wont-affect-ofws\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Cross halt of PhilHealth-funded tests won’t affect OFWs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) heading to their hometowns after completing mandatory quarantine queue at the departure area of Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2 during a send-off on Tuesday (May 26, 2020) (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Malaca\u00f1ang on Thursday assured that the swab testing of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) would not be affected by the decision of the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) to stop conducting tests that are being charged to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the PNRC\u2019s decision would hamper the country\u2019s testing efforts but noted that there are now more laboratories capable of testing Covid-19 samples besides the Department of Health – Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (DOH-RITM).<\/p>\n

Roque cited 112 laboratories capable of conducting reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests and 35 GeneXpert laboratories.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuwag naman po mag-alala ang ating mga kababayan. Makakapasok pa rin po lahat ng<\/em>\u00a0OFWs because as I said,\u00a0dati iisa lang ang ating<\/em>\u00a0testing facility \u2013 RITM.\u00a0Ngayon po<\/em>, 112 RT-PCR laboratories, and 35 GeneXpert laboratories. So\u00a0makakapasok at makakapasok po ang mga umuuwing<\/em>\u00a0OFWs (Our countrymen should not worry. OFWs may still enter the country because as I said, we used to have only one testing facility \u2013 RITM. Now we have 112 RT-PCR laboratories and 35 GeneXpert laboratories. So returning OFWs will still be allowed to enter the country),\u201d he said in a Palace press briefing.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the PNRC said it would stop conducting PhilHealth-funded tests after the state insurer failed to settle its outstanding balance of PHP930.99 million.<\/p>\n

The PNRC has stopped receiving samples of returning OFWs, those arriving in airports and seaports, those in mega swabbing facilities, and front-line health and government workers.<\/p>\n

Roque said private laboratories in the country could also handle testing of Covid-19 samples in airports and seaports.<\/p>\n

\u201cKung mawawala po yung mga serbisyo ng<\/em>\u00a0PNRC\u00a0sa ating airport, sa ating pantalan, pupuwede naman pong palitan for the time being ng mga pribado<\/em>\u00a0or other public testing centers (If we lose PNRC services in airports and seaports, they can be replaced for the time being by private or other public testing centers),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Roque, meanwhile, expressed hope that the problem between PNRC and PhilHealth would be resolved, noting that the government wants to test as many people as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do hope that the problem will be resolved because our goal is to have more people tested rather than less,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Citing Chief Implementer of the country’s National Policy Against Covid-19, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., Roque acknowledged that the PNRC has been a \u201cmajor partner\u201d of the government in conducting Covid-19 tests.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not denying the fact that the Red Cross was our major partner, particularly in testing, because they have already surpassed the one million tests. So gaya nga ng sabi ni Secretary Galvez (Like Secretary Galvez said), at least one-fourth of our total tests were done by the PNRC,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Roque also apologized to the PNRC for PhilHealth\u2019s failure to settle its outstanding balance, saying the PNRC\u2019s decision would be a \u201cbig loss\u201d to the country\u2019s testing capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo\u00a0humihingi po ako ng pasensiya sa<\/em>\u00a0(I\u2019m apologizing to the) PNRC, on behalf of the President,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Roque also said he would raise the matter before PhilHealth President and Chief Executive Officer Dante Gierran.<\/p>\n

\u201cBagamat<\/em>\u00a0one-fourth\u00a0ang<\/em>\u00a0testing\u00a0na<\/em>\u00a0conducted by PNRC\u00a0at marami na po tayong mga<\/em>\u00a0licensed RT-PCR\u00a0at<\/em>\u00a0GeneXpert laboratories,\u00a0siyempre kinakailangan pa rin natin ang<\/em>\u00a0PNRC\u00a0kung gusto pa rin natin ma<\/em>-meet\u00a0yung ating<\/em>\u00a0target\u00a0na<\/em>\u00a010 million tests (Although one-fourth is the testing conducted by PNRC and we already have many licensed RT-PCR and GeneXpert laboratories, of course, we still need PNRC if we still want to meet our target of 10 million tests),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Galvez, meanwhile, said National Task Force on Covid-19 Chairman Delfin Lorenzana, Gierran, and PNRC Chief Richard Gordon are already trying to resolve the issue.<\/p>\n

He also expressed confidence that the problem would be resolved \u201cimmediately.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Malaca\u00f1ang on Thursday assured that the swab testing of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) would not be affected by the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":256246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271956","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\/271956","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=271956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271957,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271956\/revisions\/271957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}