Hospitals cry out for reinforcement of nurses

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Hospital Association (PHA) has asked the government for staff reinforcements to care for patients as the country continues to fight a renewed surge in COVID-19 infections.

Jaime Almora, PHA president, told Teleradyo yesterday that the capacity of several big hospitals has reached “critical level.” Aside from this, an exhausted and depleted staff also continues to worry managers amid the surge.

“The nurses are tired. Their numbers are not enough. That’s why we need reinforcement. We are requesting for reinforcement from health-related agencies,” Almora said in Filipino, adding that this could come from the military, police and call centers, where many nurses are now employed.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said they are now studying how they could give “augmentation” to hospitals, just like what they did in July and August last year when the pandemic peaked in the country.

“Last July and August, what we did was to ask help from other regions that were not so much affected. We also hired (medical workers) for deployment (to hospitals),” she said at yesterday’s press briefing, recalling that, back then, hospitals also sought help from the Department of Health (DOH) as many frontliners were contracting the virus while others opted to resign.

Vergeire noted that from Feb.1 to March 21, there were 1,154 health care workers who got infected with COVID-19. One has died while 786 have recovered.

Health Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega, in an interview with ANC, said the DOH is “open in terms of augmentation for emergency hiring” for hospitals.

“We can actually hire or augment the health care workers across the different institutions. These are not volunteers, rather they will be paid in emergency basis for augmentation,” Vega added.

The OCTA Research Group earlier projected that, if the transmission of COVID-19 is not contained, the intensive care units of hospitals in Metro Manila may reach full capacity during the first week of April.

Noting this, Vega said the government is eyeing to increase bed allocations for COVID-19 patients up to 50 percent, aside from putting elective procedures on the “back burner” to prioritize moderate and severe COVID-19 cases.

Almora also urged patients outside Metro Manila to seek hospital care in their provinces instead of going to medical facilities in the capital region.

The government, in its effort to arrest the spread of the virus, banned mass gatherings and cross-border travel in Metro Manila and its neighboring provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal.

“They (hospitals) have to help the government by expanding their bed capacity so that they can accommodate more patients,” Vergeire said during the briefing.

The DOH is asking private hospitals to earmark up to 30 percent of their hospital beds for COVID-19 patients and up to 50 percent for public hospitals.

But Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc. (PHAPi) president Jose Rene de Grano revealed in interviews that many hospitals had to downsize to sustain their operations.

He noted that many hospitals are operating on a tight budget as the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) was delayed in paying reimbursement claims.

Grano complained that PhilHealth’s unsettled reimbursement payments has reached around P6 billion.