BACOLOD City – To decongest hospitals in this city, specifically the wards catering to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, Mayor Evelio Leonardia is allowing “hospital-supervised home isolation” for asymptomatic, mild, or moderate COVID-19 cases.
Citing the continuing surge in infections here, Leonardia said this system would ensure professional medical care at home as Bacolod’s healthcare facility utilization rate is picking up.
Consistent monitoring of patients is a necessity, the mayor stressed, noting that the “clinical behavior of COVID-19 is unpredictable.”
Only medical institutions may apply for accreditation through the Emergency Operations Center-Task Force (EOC-TF), said Leonardia.
“(They would) present guidelines and procedures, costs and other necessary details for home-based patient care, including provisions for adequate medical personnel to attend to daily patient monitoring, diagnostic procedures, medication, daily visits or web-based consultation,” he added.
As this was being written, the EOC has yet to give an update as to how many health facilities have already sought for accreditation.
In Leonardia’s executive order (EO), the barangay shall be responsible for “sealing” off the area admitted for hospital-supervised home isolation.
Home isolation shall only be allowed if the patient is enrolled or admitted in the hospital-supervised home isolation program.
If the patient’s dwelling circumstances do not meet the conditions for home isolation, such services may be availed in accredited hotels/pensions/inns, the EO emphasized.
Costs relative to admission into the hospital-supervised home isolation shall be at patient’s own expense, it further cited.
On the record of the One Hospital Command Center (OHCC) here, there are about 200 beds allocated for COVID-19 patients.
City Administrator Em Ang, executive director of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), said healthcare facility utilization rate now is at 60 percent as of May 24.
The utilization rate may however increase as some “COVID-19 patients outside Bacolod are also being accommodated by hospitals here.”
Ang also revealed that healthcare facilities here cannot easily increase their functional bed capacity for COVID-19 patients because they, too, were waiting for the state insurer’s pending payments.
Ang raised this concern in a recent virtual meeting with other Region 6 officials.
They sought help from the national Inter-Agency Task Force.
As of May 27, Bacolod had 9,245 total coronavirus cases – 1,135 active, 7,855 recovered and 253 dead./PN
