OUR healthcare workers have recommended not just a timeout. They raised to the President real and legitimate issues on the overwhelmed state of our healthcare system and health workers nationwide. They listed specific demands on medical solutions and pleaded that the government address them.
The national government through the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases should fully address the demands of healthcare workers, point by point, and on a national scale. Come up with a comprehensive plan for mass testing, contact tracing, isolation, and treatment. Hire enough healthcare workers, including contact tracers, with adequate compensation and just benefits. Implement that plan as soon as possible, nationwide, with health professionals at the lead and not the military and police directing everyone else around. If the President really listened, what our doctors ordered was a medical quarantine, not a military lockdown.
Simply placing Metro Manila, Region IV-A and Bulacan on modified enhanced community quarantine again without these medical solutions is, to paraphrase the President’s own words, just “putting Filipinos in prison.”
With the seeming addiction of the administration to simply impose lockdowns without adequate medical solutions, our health system continues to fight a losing battle.
President Duterte announced the hiring of more healthcare workers and additional compensation for their risks, but his own weekly reports indicate that there are no takers on the positions because of the high and sometimes fatal risk. The president continued to dodge that issue along with the people’s demand for a comprehensive medical solution.
We also caution the President from accusing those who spoke up as trying to start a revolution. The doctors do not “demean the government,” they raised legitimate issues and grievances.
“Hindi siya pinaparinggan ng revolution ng taumbayan, nananawagan lang sila ng tama at agarang aksyon at pananagutan,” said Rep. France Castro of ACT Teachers party-list. Well said.
Government inutility is the greater danger than COVID to the lives and the livelihood of the people.
