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Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) union members in private and public hospitals lit a candle for Judyn Bonn Suerte, a union leader from the Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center (JRRMMC) who succumbed to the virus on July 31. By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL Bulatlat.com...
“This should be a wake up call for the Duterte government. The press con itself is one big commentary on how the govt (mis)handled the COVID-19 response and on the poor and inadequate leadership of the Department of Health and IATF."
With the cases increasing, concerned government agencies are swamped with backlogs, particularly on validating COVID-19 cases and an overwhelmed public health system.
Mass testing, according to the petitioners, should be made free and accessible to all suspect cases, contacts of probable and confirmed cases, frontline healthworkers, and high-risk and vulnerable communities.
“This is not at all a rational solution to the problem. This move will further deplete our pool of physicians as more doctors will be exposed to the virus and its possible fatal consequences.”
With no salary and little assistance, some OFWs in the Middle East have resorted to scavenging for food.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, who heads the lead Philippine government agency in the fight against the pandemic, issued inaccurate statements and unreliable data, leaving Filipinos in doubt of his capacity to lead the country out of a public health emergency.
To save lives, the lawmakers said the government must recognize the extreme importance and urgency of mass testing along with medical solutions such as contact tracing, isolation, and treatment.
This is a sidebar report to our special report: RITM, the missing piece in the Philippines’ mass testing capacity vs. COVID-19 By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO Bulatlat.com Established in 1981, RITM was an outcome of a series of negotiations between the Philippine and...
The decrease in the RITM budget is also coupled with the decline in the allotment of other related health concerns, such as the Epidemiology and Surveillance Department, with a 40-percent drop from P247 million in 2019 to P101 million this year. Since 2015, no...
While the Department of Health said that the error is just one percent, there should be due diligence on the part of the DOH down to those who release the data because this will “trigger policy changes that will affect millions of people.” By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL...
“The integrity of the data drops is particularly important given that no less than President Rodrigo Roa Duterte himself has said many times that the government’s decision on managing COVID-19 will be based on science.”
The survey revealed that health workers are working in “excessively long hours while earning very little pay.”
Citing medical studies, psychiatrist Dr. Reggie Pamugas said that work related stress, especially among journalists, is common. Around 86 to 100 percent of journalists are actually exposed to “potentially traumatic events over the course of their careers.”
“What we want to see is how this ECQ is being used to stop the spread of the virus and not just to incarcerate the people in their homes while the government is not making any effort to aggressively conduct mass testing.”
“The case numbers they are presenting is not accurate. How can you tell if the number of cases did not double today if the test result will come out in at least two weeks?”
“That should have been the attitude of implementors of ECQ, a high level of compassion, understanding and patience. Policemen and soldiers should have this kind of attitude but their default is to arrest, or use their guns on people, which does not help in this...
Even before the pandemic, Maristela Abenojar of the Filipino Nurses United said nurses are already attending to 30 to as many as 60 patients per shift. This is a far cry from the ideal 1:12 ratio for ward patients and 1:1 for patients in intensive care.
I am now able to process this, thinking I am lucky to be able to have myself tested, as scores of Filipinos struggle with symptoms while ensuring that they will still have something to eat. But is it all luck? Is it just my luck to live in a territory with satisfactory practices in dealing with a pandemic? And what of it? What of the millions of Filipinos dealing with the pandemic on their own, with barely any government support? Is it their luck to die miserably, alone?
In public hospitals, Alliance of Health Workers said frontline health workers are enraged over the inadequate protective gear, equipment, and supplies provided to them.
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