ILOILO City –The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) turned over the 77-bed Iloilo City Modular Hospital in Barangay Sooc, Arevalo district to the city government on Thursday.
Dr. Roland Jay Fortuna, the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) focal person of the city government, received the keys to the health facility from DPWH Region 6 director Engineer Tiburcio Canlas.
The modular hospital will be for COVID-19 cases only. It will be manned by healthcare professionals in partnership with The Medical City.
Each room has its own toilet and bath and air-conditioning system.
The hospital also has a nurse’s station, emergency cart, power generator set and high-flow oxygen machines, among others.
Treñas told Panay News the Department of Health will send personnel to augment in the operation of the modular hospital.
“We are ensuring that we are ready during surges in COVID-19 cases,” said Treñas.
The modular hospital, he added, “will help lower our healthcare utilization rate” and concomitantly the city’s alert level (currently at No. 3).
Treñas recently expressed fear that this city may be placed under Alert Level 4 if COVID-19 cases will continue to rise.
Alert Level 4 is the second highest in the COVID-19 Alert Level System of the Inter-Agency Task Force of the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID).
It is declared in areas where case counts are high and/or increasing, with total bed utilization rate and intensive care unit (ICU) utilization rate at high utilization.
According to Treñas, the bed and ICU utilization rate in the city already exceeded 70 percent.
“I am very sad. While we have done our best to ramp up the vaccination and boosters for everyone, cases continue to go up and our healthcare utilization rate is also going up,” said Treñas, referring to the number of COVID-19 rooms and ICU beds occupied by patients./PN
