Alarm Sounded As Hospitals Now Overwhelmed; Doctors Brace For The Worst

 Doctors turned emotional on Friday,  Sept. 3, as they sounded the alarm about hospitals becoming overwhelmed by the continuous surge of COVID-19 cases in the country.

Her voice breaking, Dr. Maricar Limpin warned that the worst is yet to come as she pointed out during a press conference that COVID-19 patients in many hospital emergency departments are now spilling over to parking lots because there are no more beds for them.

“What we have been fearing to happen has already happened. Our healthcare system can no longer handle our COVID-19 cases. Our situation is not good and we expect that this will get worse. The pandemic will get worse. Cases will increase faster than we capacitate our health system,” Limpin, convenor of the Healthcare Professional Alliance against COVID-19 (HPAAC), said.

Philippine College of Emergency Medicine’s Jeremy Cordero noted how it pains them to turn away patients, a move that they sometimes have to do because there are not enough beds available in emergency rooms.

“It’s really hard to tell the relatives that we cannot accept their patients because we no longer have beds. But we have to do it,” he said.

Cordero maintained they need support in terms of benefits and life-saving equipment such as mechanical ventilators, oxygen and high-flow nasal cannula.

“Please have mercy on us. We need your support. We have to be unified in times like this for our country,” he stressed.

HPAAC convenor Aileen Espina said the government’s response to the pandemic is simply “not enough,” noting that a year has since passed but concrete solutions have not been implemented.

“When will we see contact tracing efforts digitized and connected? We have the experts and the technology to do this but what we are lacking is the political will and direction from our leaders,” she said.

Espina lamented that despite the challenges faced by healthcare workers (HCWs), the government has been remiss in providing them with due salaries and benefits.

For his part, HPAAC lead convenor Antonio Dans said everyone must learn to protect themselves and their loved ones because the end of the pandemic is nowhere in sight.

Dans pointed out that community lockdowns would be put to waste if people will go back to their old ways, which is being complacent in observing standard health protocols, every time the quarantine classification is relaxed.

“We have to learn to live with the virus without getting infected,” he stressed.

The Department of Health (DOH) on Friday logged 20,310 additional cases of COVID-19, pushing the nationwide tally to 2,040,568.

DOH said 193 more fatalities were registered, bringing the death toll to 33,873. 

The number of recoveries, meanwhile, increased to 1,847, 701, with the addition of 7,710 new survivors.

BARMM still Delta-free

Meanwhile, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) remains free from the more infectious Delta variant, the Department of Health clarified on Friday.

On Thursday, Sept. 2, the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) said the highly transmissible Delta variant is now present in all regions of the country following the detection of two cases in the BARMM.

But during Friday’s press briefing, DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire noted 
two cases of Delta variant were initially reported in BARMM but this was disproved upon further validation.

“When we validated, we found that these two cases are returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs) who only underwent the mandatory quarantine in BARMM,” she said.

Vergeire added the two ROFs are not really from BARMM so the region was removed from the lists of regions having Delta variant cases.

Details about the two ROFs are not immediately available.

Community transmission

This as PGC executive director Cynthia Saloma said at a virtual public briefing on Friday that four regions are being evaluated to determine if they already have community transmission of the Delta variant.

These are Central Luzon, Northern Mindanao, Western Visayas and Central Visayas.

"We still have to validate the other cases, such as in Region 3, Region 10, Region 6, and Region 7 if they are already having community transmission," she maintained.

Saloma said based on their analysis, what is “very clear” is that the National Capital Region and Calabazon are already experiencing community transmission.

Community transmission takes place when the connection of each and every COVID-19 cases could no longer be traced. 

HCWs lauded 

President Duterte on Thursday, Sept. 2, lauded embattled Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and health workers for the recovery of over 1.8 million people in the country from COVID-19.
 
The President made the remark as COVID-19 infections in Philippines breached the two million mark this week, a fifth of those were recorded in August alone.

 “Our consolation is that 1.8 million of these have recovered. So there are 200 who haven’t. And that is a very good reflection of what our health people are doing, and I would like also to commend Secretary Duque for that,” Duterte said in his taped public address.

Duterte has repeatedly defended Duque, who is currently under fire for the supposed mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic response funds of his agency.
 
Duterte also continued to appeal to the public to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

“The (vaccine) is really what we can offer you to fight COVID-19. Nothing else. There's no other defense against the microbe (virus),” he said.

“If you haven’t received your second dose yet, kindly get it as fast as you can. The vaccine is there,” he added.

Duterte earlier vowed to step down if anyone can name a country that was prepared for COVID-19 as his administration faces intense criticism over its handling of the pandemic.

Duterte said COVID-19 infections are rising globally and the effects of the pandemic are being felt even in the United States and Europe. 

“Who was prepared for this? America? Name a country that is prepared, I will resign,” he said in a previous public address. – With Helen Flores