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Monday, October 13, 2003
MisOr hospitals in sorry state: regional hospital chief
By Lizanilla Amarga
ALL seven district hospitals in Misamis Oriental are in a "sorry state" as most can no longer handle primary and secondary cases, the chief administrator of the local regional hospital said Saturday.
This came as the Federation of Philippine American Chamber of Commerce, Inc. (FPACCI) donated hospital medicines, gadgets and supplies worth millions of pesos to the second district of Misamis Oriental.
The donations are set to arrive Monday or Tuesday at the Macabalan Port in Cagayan de Oro City and will be received by Misamis Oriental 2nd District Rep. Augusto "Jun" Baculio Jr., who requested for the medical help two years ago in California, USA.
It will be handed over to the regional office of the Department of Health (DOH) 10, which will distribute them to the Northern Mindanao Medical Clinic (NMMC) and seven other district hospitals in the province.
In a press conference Saturday, NMMC head Dr. Evelyn Clarete said she welcomed the medical assistance from Filipinos abroad.
She said all hospitals in the province are in dire need of such help as they are no longer as effectively and efficiently equipped in terms of hospital staff and equipments as before.
According to Clarete, majority of these district hospitals rely so much on NMMC that even primary and secondary cases are passed on to them.
"Ang amo nalang unta diha sa NMMC kanang mga referral na kasagaran," she said. (What we should be handling at NMMC should be more referral cases rather than primary and secondary cases.)
She added that even pregnant women in some municipalities where there are district hospitals are still brought to the NMMC.
Baculio for his part said he too have received a lot of reports about how the local provincial district hospitals are now called "Mona Lisa Hospitals."
"For the patients in these hospitals 'just lie there and die there'," he said adding that this was what encouraged him to seek help from other private organizations elsewhere even abroad.
Baculio explained that this as their congressional fund is not enough to provide medical help for the local hospitals in their districts.
He admitted he didn't exactly expect the FPACCI to donate anything due to the bureaucratic red tape delaying foreign assistance from coming in freely from other countries.
This until he received a letter from the FPACCI president Yolanda Ortega Stern, included in which was a Release Authorization and Transmittal Receipt, on Oct. 8.
"We were even so surprised that the medical assistance, which is placed inside four very big boxes landed in the Department of Defense, but it will arrive here in Cagayan de Oro either Monday or Tuesday," he said during the press conference.
Baculio requested the media to thoroughly document the acceptance, turning over and distribution of the FPACCI's donations to beneficiaries.
"I want everythig to be transparent," he said.
The donations include Augmentin 100 ml worth $200, Celebrex 157 pills valued at $471, trach care kits, suction tubing, vaccutainers, iodophor stks, spinal anest. tr., operating room kit, rectal therm covers, skin scrub try and lower extra backs.
Also anesthesia resp. circ., disposable underpads, hospital laundry bags, fracture pans, operating room gloves, needles and syringes, cataract trays, surgical start kits, IV tubing, operating room hats and Chux absorbent pads.
Additional medicines from FPACCI are also set to arrive after this first set.
Baculio announced that he is still working on convincing FPACCI representative Dennis Villanueva to donate more medical assistance to NMMC and the seven district hospitals in the province.
"What will arrive here this week is just the start," he said.
Clarete was asked by Baculio and Villanueva on what NMMC and the seven other provincial hospitals's needs are.
In terms of medicines, she replied that the local hospitals need medicines for Pulmonia as it is the number one killer in the province.
"We need antibiotics for this...also injectables antibiotics and those of the higher generation antibiotics," she said.
Also diarrhea solutions for kids, antibiotics for amoeba and other parasitic medicines and dialyzing solutions.
For equipments, Clarete said they need incubators for prematurely-born babies, suction machines preferably the portable ones, gas sterilizers, steel beds and beds for the emergency room wich have roller wheels, operating room lings, portable x-rays and ultrasound among others.
If possible, she told Baculio and Villanueva that the NMMC would welcome having a cobalt machine.
"We already have the ward, a trained radioactive engineer and everything...all we lack is this cobalt machine," she said.
(October 13, 2003 issue)
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