Tuesday, October 10, 2007 Police to transport suspected dengue patients from mountain barangays to hospitals
ACTING Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama has included school administrators and the police in the campaign against dengue fever, as the City’s dengue task force starts a massive education campaign on its prevention and detection.
Rama met yesterday with the administrators of public and private schools, barangay officials, barangay health workers, nutrition scholars and members of the local media to brief them on the dengue situation in the city.
During their meeting at the Cebu City Health Department, the task force also distributed flyers on dengue prevention and managing dengue cases.
The flyers are just some of the campaign materials that Mayor Tomas Osmeña asked for, to educate the public on how to identify the signs and symptoms of dengue. Osmeña is on leave.
Rama said he will continue to hold dialogues with the barangay officials since very few barangays were represented in yesterday’s meeting.
“We have to bring all the barangays together because we’re not talking of just 20 barangays affected by dengue. There are 73 out of the 80 barangays that have dengue cases. They have to be aware of the situation,” he told Sun.Star Cebu.
The acting mayor called for the meeting to inform the barangay and school officials on the declaration of a state of calamity in the entire city and the free hospital services for suspected dengue patients.
He also informed the barangay officials and health workers to tap their police stations in transporting dengue patients to the hospitals, especially the patients coming from mountain barangays.
“That’s also one of the obligations of the police. The barangay officials should know that they can ask the police to help bring dengue patients to the hospitals if there are no other vehicles available,” Rama added.
The city officials are hopeful that with the massive information campaign, the number of dengue cases will go down in the coming months, even if health officials projected that dengue cases will peak in October and November.
As of Sept. 30, at least 1,000 dengue cases have been reported to the Cebu City Health Department. There have been 25 deaths so far. (LCR)
