ILOILO City – Private hospitals here have agreed to admit persons diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), according to Assistant Secretary Gerard Anthony “Jonji” Gonzales of the Office the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas (OPAV).
Although the Western Visayas Medical Center (WVMC) in Mandurriao district has been designated as COVID-dedicated hospital in the region, private hospitals should not turn away COVID patients should anyone seek treatment in them, he stressed.
“We have to open up private hospitals. Because the rule is if you are a Level 3 hospital – and there are a lot of Level 3 hospitals in Iloilo – they should be capable to attend to COVID patients,” said Gonzales, OPAV’s Special Concerns Officer of Western Visayas.
Level 3 hospitals are those with high-level specialty intervention. Most private hospitals here are.
Gonzales had a meeting with representatives of private hospitals on April 7.
“We talk to them and they agreed they will admit COVID patients,” Gonzales said.
The Department of Health (DOH) “can very well issue a show-cause order to Level 3 hospitals that refuse to admit COVID and non-COVID patients,” he stressed.
Over DyRI radio station on April 8, Dr. Ludovico Jurao Jr., assistant administrator of Iloilo Doctors’ Hospital, said private hospitals in the city were discussing to identify a dedicated private hospital for COVID-19 patients who prefer to seek treatment other than at WVMC.
“We want to identify the best area, the best hospital to contain the infection. At the same time, the purpose is to channel the donations of PPE (personal protective equipment) to that hospital because that is one of our big problems now,” explained Jurao, also the spokesperson of the Philippine Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Iloilo.
Stressing the practicality if this set up, he said the medical doctor will just visit the patient in the private COVID-dedicated hospital so there is less exposure by the public to the virus.
However, he said private hospitals should not deny suspected, possible and probable COVID-19 cases. Once the person tests positive, the patient would be offered the option of being referred to a private hospital or WVMC./PN
