Hospital chief bats for disaster preparedness

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

CORAZON Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital Chief Dr. Julius Drilon fully supports the plan of the city to strengthen its disaster planning and management.

“Every city, municipality, province all over the country should have a disaster planning management. Remember that the Philippines experienced climate change phenomena in the past couple of years. Look at Ondoy, the landslides in Bohol that have been repeated in Surigao, and flooding in the south which normally does not occur. It is not a far-fetched possibility that it may happen to Bacolod City,” he pointed out.

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“Remember, we have Mt. Kanlaon and it is one hour away from us. It is an active volcano. If that volcano erupts, God forbids, we will be hit here. Bacolod is a coastal city. Although on the west, we are shielded by Guimaras Island and on the East, we are shielded by the mountain ranges that separate Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental, you cannot dictate Mother nature,” he said.

“Whatever is the program of the City Government insofar as disaster planning and management in terms of seminar, preparedness and what have you, we fully support that. Whatever assistance that we can give to the city, we will fully support that,” he added. In fact, the Department of Health has a program – Health Emergency Management Services (HEMS). The local counterpart of it is the Emergency Medical Services, which encompasses jurisdiction over the Police, the Bureau of Fire and Medical.

“Our experience in Makati, which I am proud to say that I was part of that, is the first city which had a functional Emergency Medical Services in 1998. Right now, it is one of the most active emergency medical services in the country. It has done a lot to its population both for business establishments, for the transient residents,” Drilon said.

In any place, in order to attract investors, one of the aspects of the investing in one place is security. Part of security is health security, disaster security, among others.

“So I encourage the Local Chief Executive of the City to come up with a tangible program, attainable and realistic disaster planning management. I can contribute during the deliberation because Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital is sitting at the heart of the city and I am sure we will be the center of referral of patients that will be brought in, hoping not. Besides, unnecessary loss of lives should be prevented.

We can never really fight the fury of Mother nature. But we can at least negate the losses in terms of lives. Protection and to private properties caused by flooding, fire etc. All of these require planning. We cannot just flick our finger and be knee-jerk reactants when disaster hits. It’s like a smoking gun. It should have a pro active approach. Resources should be readied and it should be part of the planning and budgeting of the city should be allocated to disaster preparedness,” he said. (CNC)