Fifteen nurses have been deployed by the Department of Health in Central Visayas to hospitals in Bacolod City to boost the fight against the coronavirus disease.
The deployment of more healthcare personnel was facilitated by the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas (OPAV), led by Secretary Michael Lloyd Dino, who is part of the Cebu team assisting Bacolod in its battle against Covid-19.
Mayor Evelio Leonardia had appealed for urgent assistance from President Rodrigo Duterte last month.
“The OPAV vows to continuously help the City of Bacolod and province of Negros Occidental,” it said on a Facebook post Wednesday.
Yesterday, the first batch of four medical technologists from the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH) started their two-day training at the DOH-7’s Cebu TB Reference Laboratory-Molecular Facility for Covid-19 testing in Cebu City.
“The medical technologists will see and experience the best practices of the DOH-7 Cebu molecular laboratory. This is part of the commitment of OPAV to capacitate the laboratories in Western Visayas,” it added.
In July, the CLMMRH opened its molecular laboratory in partnership with Bacolod City.
Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, chief pathologist of DOH-7, earlier visited Bacolod City and Negros Occidental to share the best laboratory practices of Cebu.
The OPAV said the linkage aims to capacitate and streamline the laboratory operations in Region 6 through ocular visits and sharing of recommendations to ensure timely release of results and further enhance contact tracing efforts and slow down local transmission.
On Aug. 31, a 12-member medical team of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, including two doctors, four nurses, and six aid men, also arrived in the city and were deployed in two private hospitals.
One team, comprised of one doctor, two nurses, and three medical aides, was dispatched to the Dr. Pablo O. Torre Memorial Hospital while the other was assigned to the Bacolod Queen of Mercy Hospital.*PNA
