THE Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) on Monday evening, March 9, bared the last patient under investigation (PUI) confined in their isolation facility tested negative from the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
Dr. Ricardo Audan, SPMC Chief of Clinics and Health Emergency Management Bureau (HEMB) coordinator, said the Australian national who was referred to their facility after manifesting signs and symptoms of respiratory infection turned out negative.
The result came after two days since the PUI was admitted to SPMC. The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Manila released the test result.
Audan, however, said the patient was not released yet and is still admitted at SPMC. He added that they will get another sample from the patient which will be sent again to RITM to guarantee that the patient is indeed negative of Covid-19. Audan is confident that the result of the PUI will still be negative.
“[He is currently in] stable condition. Nothing to worry,” Audan said.
Now that Public Health Emergency has been declared by President Rodrigo Duterte, Audan said stricter precautionary measures have been implemented in the hospital.
He added a one-watcher policy has been implemented at SPMC to minimize the number of people coming in and out of the hospital except for the pediatric department since children need more attention.
“We do away with flag ceremony just like city hall, no seminars, no Lakbay Aral to other institutions, no (vacation) leave to affected countries,” Audan said.
Earlier, SPMC chief Dr. Leopoldo Vega assured the public that they are on top of the situation and SPMC is also equipped with isolation facility which is a depressurized room to prevent the spread of the virus.
“At SPMC, we have prepared for this emerging infection ever since Sars, H1N1 came in. We have prepared the necessary laboratory equipment. SPMC has the real time PCR machine capable of diagnosing a lot of these viruses. We are training our med-tech personnel for the identification and diagnosis of the novel coronavirus because it is really new,” Vega said.