THE Department of Health (DOH) officially gave the Davao de Oro Provincial Hospital in Montevista (DDOPH) a license to operate its Covid-19 biomolecular laboratory.
Davao de Oro Governor Jayvee Tyron Uy posted on his Facebook page that DDOPH already has a certificate of license to operate, which means it can conduct a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test effective February 24 until December 31, 2021.
Uy said it took the provincial government months to prepare the facility, as the equipment was purchased abroad.
The governor said the creation of the facility is in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology-Davao Region (DOST-Davao) and the Philippine Genome Center of the University of the Philippines-Mindanao (UP-Min), who both trained its personnel.
"The budget for this project is from our share sa (in the) Bayanihan Grant to the Provinces. Gigamit nato (We utilized this) to invest in our healthcare system, to help in our testing efforts because we cannot take chances until wala’y bakuna," Uy said in his Facebook post.
He did not specify how much they alloted for their own biomolecular laboratory.
Uy said in a previous report that the provincial government decided to open its own Covid-19 testing laboratory in a bid to help unclog the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) of patients who needed to be tested for the coronavirus.
He said the Covid-19 testing facility will benefit residents of Davao de Oro.
He added that as of the moment, Covid-19 testing for the residents of the province takes several days before results come out. With this setup, those who were quarantined in the province's facilities experienced extended days from the original 14-day quarantine period as they needed to confirm their swab test results before they would be discharged.
"Karon, naga-experience kita’g delays and anaay mga tao na mulampas ug 14 days dira sa ilang quarantine tungod kay nagasalig lamang kita sa SPMC. We know that SPMC is accommodating the entire Mindanao (Currently, we experience delays and some extend their quarantine from the original 14 days because we only rely on the SPMC)," Uy said in the same post.
According to Davao de Oro Provincial Health Office, the laboratory will initially cater to 100 tests daily, the current testing demand of the province.
DDOPH is the latest RT-PCR laboratory accredited in catering to Covid-19 tests, along with SPMC, Davao One World Diagnostic Laboratory, Davao International Airport Molecular Laboratory, and Davao Regional Medical Center Molecular Laboratory.