MANILA – Acts of discrimination against persons with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), patients under investigation (PUIs), persons under monitoring (PUMs) and healthcare workers would be prosecuted, warned the government’s Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Task force spokesperson and Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles cited as example the pelting of stones of the house of a family in Lambunao, Iloilo with several members who tested positive for COVID-19.
The father of the family, 70 years old, died from the viral disease on March 29. His wife and four children subsequently tested positive for COVID-19, too.
“Ang malungkot dito, sila ay naulila. Namatay ang kanilang ama. (P)umayag (na nga) sila – in the interest of transparency and in order to warn those that had been in contact with them – na ilahad sa publiko na sila ay (positive for the disease tapos) pinagbabato (pa) ang kanilang tahanan,” Nograles lamented a press conference yesterday.
He warned people who discriminate: “The government will act on cases of discrimination wherever and whenever these happen.”
“Local government units are enjoined to issue the necessary executive orders and/or enact ordinances prohibiting and penalizing discriminatory acts,” Nograles said.
This was not the first time the national government warned against COVID-19-related discrimination in Iloilo. Two weeks ago Undersecretary Ma. Rosario Vergeire of the Department of Health (DOH) lamented reports that healthcare workers of The Medical City in Molo district were being ostracized from their boardinghouses and barangays following the confirmation that Western Visayas’ second positive case of COVID-19 was confined in that hospital.
“Hindi po ito ang panahon para talikuran natin ang ating healthcare workers. Sila po ay nag-iingat para hindi makapanghawa ng iba. So sana po ‘wag po natin itong (discrimination) gawin sa ating mga healthcare workers,” said Vergeire.
Former mayor of Lambunao and now Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Iloilo member Jason Gonzales also recently revealed residents of his municipality with medical conditions other than COVID-19 and seeking treatment in Iloilo City hospitals and other district hospitals in the province were being rejected.
The reason cited, according to Gonzales, was that Lambunao’s Dr. Ricardo Y. Ladrido Memorial Hospital (DRYMH) – a provincial government-run district hospital – is catering to PUIs.
DRYMH has been designated by DOH Region 6 as medical facility in Iloilo where PUIs with mild symptoms should be confined.
“As a result of this designation, coupled with confirmed COVID-19 infections in our town, our residents have been stigmatized,” lamented Gonzales./PN
