BACOLOD City – The local governments of this city and the province of Negros Occidental are regularly sharing information about their respective pandemic situation – number of infections, available quarantine and step-down facilities, data on patient extraction, and number of available hospital beds, among others.
They are harmonizing measures against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), said City Administrator Em Ang, also the executive director of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC).
Officials of the EOC taskforce, the Provincial Health Office (PHO) and the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO) previously discussed how to boost coordination.
“Through this coordination, the two LGUs are able to share their best practices with each other,” said Edwin Miraflor Jr., officer-in-charge of the City Health Office. “Among others, this harmonizes patient referrals.”
For Assistant Provincial Health Officer Jessica Pama, coordination facilitates “smooth communication and referral” for the hospital admission especially of patients with severe coronavirus symptoms.
In Bacolod, the One Hospital Command Center (OHCC) System is in place; it ensure thee availability of hospital beds to severe COVID-19 cases.
Ang said the two LGUs already clarified the guidelines on the use of hotels in Bacolod as quarantine facilities during their first coordination meeting on April 16.
Ang stressed that only hotels validated by the Department of Health (DOH) are allowed to function as quarantine facilities.
Hotels that accept regular guests are not allowed to operate as quarantine facilities.
In welcoming the coordination, PDRRMO head Zeaphard Gerhart Caelian said: “I hope we can interact regularly so that if we have concerns, the city government can immediately address them , and vice versa. We have to work hand-in-hand, we are in one island after all.”
He also stressed that the province is campaigning for the use of StaySafe app for health condition reporting, contact tracing, social distancing systems, and border controls purposes.
Bacolod’s EOC is also endorsing StaySafe as a requirement for inbound travelers, on top of the BaCTraC, its online contact tracing system./PN
