BY MATÉ ESPINA
WITH less than a week to go, Bacolod City officials cannot issue a definitive answer whether the Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) will be lifted and downgraded to General Community Quarantine (GCQ) or Modified CGQ because despite daily cases dropping to double digits, there is still a huge backlog in test results and contact tracing.
Bacolod’s Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran said though he thinks we may be downgraded, “everything is up to the assessment of officials sent here by the NIATF.” Bacolod cases have breached the 3,500 mark with death toll at 64. With only 47 COVID-beds left in hospitals, the possibility of a downgrade is everybody’s guess.
If we recall, late last month, Bacolod City participated in the mass testing and of 4,000 plus tests conducted, more than 500 resulted positive.
However, even before that, there were backlogs already in test results despite having four testing laboratories in Bacolod and one in the province. On top of that, the continuing contact tracing and testing of those exposed to the identified positives in the mass testing, are adding to the backlogs.
There is a growing concern that some positives are roaming freely because their results have not yet been released. Negros Press Club President, Glazyl Masculino got her positive results nine days after swabbing and hers is just one among many cases of delayed results.
That is why some, though qualified to avail of the free testing from government for being part of traced contacts, are opting to pay for tests at the Red Cross lab or other private labs because of the turnaround results in 24 hours.
A friend had a household help who tested positive. Though the barangay official informed them they are priority for free testing, all 17 of them in the household went to Red Cross for their tests, spending over P65,000.
My friend said it was worth paying to have peace of mind since four members of the family are immunocompromised. Of the 17, two more tested positive and were transferred to a quarantine facility. The rest of the household remain in home quarantine for another week as part of protocol.
Will going after the backlogs help in curbing the spread? According to the local task force yes, because even if some positives are done with the mandated 14-day quarantine from the time of testing, there is a need to trace all their contacts as that’s the only way they can continue the test, trace and treat.
The big question therefore is whether downgrading our status, now that we have made headway in identifying and quarantining the positives, will help in stabilizing our situation, not just in terms of numbers but in ensuring our health facilities will not collapse.
Meanwhile, Pontevedra town Mayor Jomar Alonzo and wife Gerardine have tested positive. The mayor is asymptomatic but his wife had fever early this week that prompted them to have her tested. Both barely leave their homes except last week when she accompanied her mother to a hospital for check-up.
Speaking of hospitals, there are calls for government to look closely at the state of PhilHealth, especially in the handling of COVID cases.
An employee of a big company here, who recently passed away of COVID, was billed by the hospital P780,000, chargeable to PhilHealth, even when his stay at the hospital was less than 24-hours. A colleague of the deceased, tasked to process the cremation and the billing because the family remains on lockdown, was shocked, to say the least, upon seeing the bill.
Worse is, the company even bought P49,000 worth of medicines the hospital required, and the patient was just at the Emergency Room for 10 hours before he was transferred to the intensive care unit but succumbed to death the following morning.
A blatant entry was the P230,000 charges for doctors’ fees. And to think that the same company had another employee who was also hospitalized for three weeks in another hospital here, also for COVID but was only charged a little over P300,000.
Even if the bill was at zero-cost to the deceased, it doesn’t erase the fact that some hospitals are actually overbilling the government health insurance agency and if that practice will not be addressed, it may not be long before PhilHealth will collapse.
In other news, the Bacolod city council asked Mayor Bing Leonardia to investigate the food packs that were distributed under the MECQ after social media posts of discolored rice and expired noodles went viral.
The resolution said food adulteration can have harmful effects on the health and can lead to toxicity in the body, and proper investigation is being sought to avoid such incident from happening again.
Mayor Bing earlier apologized to the public saying the rice discoloration may have been caused when these got wet while stored in a school gymnasium while the noodles were procured July for distribution then, but was reserved for future use when it coincided with the distribution of SAP.
A couple of days ago, Social Services head, Pacita Tero announced that they will soon be distributing around 40,000 food packs and this time, stressed that the noodles contained in the packs will expire by October./PN
