City taking steps to lessen load of CCMC - Tan

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday said the city is already trying its best to lessen the load of Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) and said that the doctors at the Pediatric Ward, who have complained, are free to go.

In yesterday’s press conference, Osmeña emphasized that very recently the city took three major steps in lessening the load of the hospital for them to concentrate in their respective fields of specialization.

“We are transferring the work load to the health centers, I am already removing the non city residents, its not like I’m not doing anything about it.  And then we are hiring additional doctors for the 40 health centers, but if they want to leave, goodbye,” Osmeña said.

He said that he is very serious in achieving “zero dengue death” at CCMC that majority if not every dengue death should be investigated.

 The mayor said in the recent “pulong-pulong” at barangay Tisa that there were three complainants, who approached him, all of them with children who died of dengue.

“I am the one who is demoralized.  I’d rather have them demoralized and I’m happy rather than they’re happy and I’m demoralized, they always think of me, me, me why can’t they just think of the patients,” Osmeña said.

 The doctors at the Pediatric Ward of CCMC were recently contemplating of going on a mass leave or resignation after having been bombarded recently with criticisms and blames for the dengue deaths,

They said they had been demoralized and could not concentrate on their work.

They denied taking their work for granted saying they had and are willing to go on an extra mile so as not to see any of their patients die.

The resident doctors who only had a few months to finish were planning to consume their remaining leaves while those that had started were thinking of transferring to other hospitals.

Dr. Lee James Maratas, junior pediatric consultant yesterday said, they were merely expressing their sentiments and wanted a little respect to their profession.

“For now, we are going an extra mile also, despite the hurtful criticisms, we are staying because we know the patients need us,” Maratas said.

The Pediatrics Department used to deal with an average of 1,500 different cases every month or 50 patients daily. But as of last month, the number has risen to 3,000 a month.

The Pediatrics Department only has nine resident doctors. One is assigned at the Emergency Room, another three at the Ward, one at the Intensive Care Unit and one at the Outpatient Department.

They work for 36 hours straight with only 12 hours of rest in between. — Ferliza Contratista/NLQ   (THE FREEMAN)