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A medical frontliner's sacrifice: Doctors, nurses try to hold their urine during 8-hour shift

By Racquel Quieta

Doctors, nurses, and medical workers sacrifice a lot in the battle against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Photo by Jonathan Borba / Unsplash

They put their own health at risk and endure the agony of not being with their family-or not being able to hug or kiss them-in order to prevent them from getting infected with COVID-19.

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But on top of that, there are other sacrifices they have to make while performing their job: trying not to pee during their 8-hour shift.

Medical frontliners at the UP-PGH COVID-19 ward hold their urine

The medical frontliners at the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) care for almost 90 COVID-19 patients.

While you might think that's a lot of patients, the UP-PGH COVID-19 ward has still not reached its full capacity, as they have allocated 130 beds for COVID-19 patients.

So, why do the medical frontliners hold their urine? Is it because there's too much to be done in the COVID-19 ward?

According to the exclusive report of 24 Oras, that's not exactly the case.

The doctors and nurses at the COVID-19 ward of UP-PGH try their best not to pee during their 8-hour shift in order to avoid having to replace the personal protective equipment (PPE) that they're wearing.

It's part of their protocol to change PPE after urinating as the suit has already been contaminated.

And since there's a worldwide shortage of PPEs, they're probably trying to minimize the number of PPEs that they use in a day.

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See what it's like to be a medical frontliner at the UP-PGH COVID-19 ward in this exclusive report of Raffy Tima in 24 Oras.

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