THE Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) in Davao City claims that there are currently 26 confirmed coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in their facility.
SPMC bared this on its official website on Saturday morning, March 28, with 23 currently admitted at the hospital while three succumbed to the highly-infectious disease. Meanwhile, the hospital is currently monitoring 93 patients under investigation (PUIs).
However, the Department of Health - Davao Region (DOH-Davao) has not yet made any update on the latest tally of confirmed cases in the region, as of Saturday, March 28.
As of 12 noon, the SPMC post was taken down from its website.
Ricardo Audan, SPMC Chief of Clinics and Health Emergency Management Bureau (HEMB) coordinator, said DOH-Davao ordered them to take down their Covid-19 bulletin hours after it was posted.
He then said only DOH-Davao is authorized to issue the medical bulletin.
“Meron kaming memo na natanggap (from DOH) na hindi na kami magrerelease ng data as DOH will be the ones releasing the data (We have received a memo from DOH, stopping us from releasing the data as they will be the ones releasing the data),” Audan told Sunstar Davao in a phone interview.
Audan said the SPMC management already apologized to DOH-Davao for not coordinating with them in the announcement of the figures. Both parties had a meeting after the data was released.
However, he said their figures are accurate as SPMC was accredited by the National Reference Laboratory as a subnational laboratory for Covid-19 “diagnosis and identification” in Mindanao, thus, they will no longer wait for the confirmatory test result from the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).
Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, in a radio interview, also affirmed SPMC’s capability of testing Covid-19 positive patients.
Audan said the SPMC board agreed in a meeting, through the approval of SPMC chief Dr. Leopoldo Vega, to release data everyday, not to cause panic but to inform the public on the “real situation” inside the hospital.
“The post was not intended to create panic, but this is for information, to really increase the kind of precautionary measures and awareness to the public,” Audan said.
He also said even the announcement of the figures was due to the clamor of the SPMC employees, who even compared other Covid-primary hospitals in Manila who are transparent in their figures.
Audan, meanwhile, said he cannot confirm how the confirmed patients acquired the virus, but he believed that some of them acquired it from outside the region.
With the rising number of cases, the health official said the public should be more cautious.
“The public should really practice precautionary measures such as social distancing, and proper handwashing. They should, at all times, obey the government,” Audan said.
Aside from SPMC, Davao Regional Medical Center (DRMC) in Tagum City is also a Covid-19 accredited hospital capable of treating patients.