CITY of San Fernando Vice Mayor Jimmy Lazatin Wednesday, April 15, said that the City Council had approved Resolution 2020-060 which authorized Mayor Edwin Santiago to enter into agreements with the Green City Medical Center for the establishment of testing centers in the city.
Santiago, on April, 14, signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Dr. Hazel P. Peñafiel, president and chief executive officer of Green City Medical Center. The signing was attended by Vice Mayor Jimmy T. Lazatin, Dr. Vincent Deoduco of San Fernandino Hospital, Incident Commander Dr. Renely P. Tungol, director of Finance of Green City Medical Center and Dr. Ronaldo Panganiban Jr. among others.
The MOA seeks to establish the partnership between the local government unit (LGU) and Green City to immediately begin massive testing activities in an effort to minimize and, hopefully, drastically reduce cases or Covid-19 infections within San Fernando.
As one of the tertiary health facilities in the capital city, the Green City, classified as a Level 2 Hospital by the Department of Health, is being considered as it has the capability of conducting the testing of patients probably infected with Covid-19.
The health care institution will take charge in complying with the standards in the physical set up of the laboratory to serve as accredited testing facility; and be responsible in the licensing requirements for accreditation with the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) and Philippine Health Insurance Corporation.
For its part, the LGU will coordinate with Green City on the schedules of Covid-19 testing; procure the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) machine, test kits, and other accessory equipment to be used in the testing; provide capability building activities to Green City health workers and support staff to ensure the proper handling, use and maintenance of the machine and test kits; assist in the licensing requirements for the RITM and PhilHealth accreditation; and, augment the manpower such as medical technologists and administrative aides to expedite testing and release of result/findings.
Dr. Renely Tungol, City Infectious Cluster program manager and Incident Commander of Incident Management Team, said the LGU expects the testing to be done on the third week of April, prioritizing all suspects of Covid-19.