THE eight members of House of Representatives from Bacolod City and Negros Occidental have sought the immediate intervention by the Department of Health to address concerns besetting the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH) in its efforts to take proactive measures against the spread of coronavirus disease or Covid-19.

In their two-page letter, dated March 18, 2020 to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, Reps. Greg Gasataya (Bacolod City), Gerardo Valmayor (1st District), Leo Rafael Cueva (2nd District), Francisco Benitez (3rd District), Juliet Marie Ferrer (4th District), Ma. Lourdes Arroyo (5th District), Genaro Alvarez, Jr. (6th District) and Joseph Stephen Paduano (Abang Lingkod party-list), also asked the DOH’s support for the Capitol-owned Teresita Jalandoni Provincial Hospital (TJPH) in Silay City.

The Negrense solons pointed out six major concerns, which they said, hinder the operations of both the CLMMRH and the TJPH in the fight against Covid-19 following the issuance by President Duterte of Proclamation Order 929, which placed the entire country under a state of calamity.

These issues affecting the hospitals, they said, are:

1. Continuous and consistent flow of supply chain of medical supplies;

2. Need for further Universal Transport Medium a.k.a. “swabs” confirmation of PUIs;

3. Protocol for sending swabs out from the province;

4. Holding of medical supplies from Metro Manila;

5. Need for equipment to assay UTMs and,

6. Need for AFP regular trips for logistics of medical supplies, if necessary.

The Bacolod City-based CLMMRH “serves as the sole-end referral and premiere tertiary hospital that offers specialized medical care for the entire province,” they added.

The congressmen said the CLMMRH has become paramount to the efforts of the province against Covid-19 as the leading institution in the testing and quarantine of persons under investigation (PUIs) and persons under monitoring (PUMs).

They added, “We urge the Department of Health to address and clarify the protocols or guidelines on the above-mentioned concerns of the CLMMRH pursuant to our shared goal of barring the further spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in our country”. (TDE)