Garcia worried about excess medical supplies

CEBU, Philippines — Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia has expressed concern over the excess medical supplies used in the fight against the Covid-19 disease that are now stored in the different provincial and district hospitals of Cebu.

Garcia, during the report of the Capitol’s evaluation team that went to the provincial-run health facilities to conduct an assessment, found out that there was still an oversupply of Covid-19 supplies like face masks, personal protective equipment (PPE), Intravenous (IV) fluids, and others.

Garcia told reporters that this was the problem of the hospitals even before because several boxes containing these supplies were just stacked in the hallways of the health facilities.

“All of our hospitals, in fact si Dr. Giango (Dr. Christina Giango, former chief of the Provincial Health Office) pa to, at that point who had not yet retired, she was already alerting me nga our chiefs of hospitals are already complaining, they have no room anymore with these PPEs, masks, naa pa gani toy face shields gani,” Garcia said.

These supplies were downloaded by the Department of Health (DOH) to the local hospitals like the provincial and district hospitals of Cebu.

“I’m not talking about the regional office kay gi-download naman lang sad na. Maybe, who is the OIC now, might (be able to) shed light on that kay we really have an oversupply,” Garcia said.

The governor said some of the provincial-run hospitals have put these boxes in proper storage rooms and urged others to also look for rooms where to keep the supplies.

“In the second round (of the assessment), there were still boxes nga at least they were able now to put them in proper storage rooms. But the PPEs, some hospitals have converted it to cover for the mattresses and well you have the IV fluids nga nang-expire” Garcia said. — GAN (FREEMAN)