Philippine Red Cross opens hotline for COVID-19 results

The Philippine Red Cross (PRC) has opened a hotline service which the public can easily access to get their COVID-19 test results, according to its chairman, Senator Richard Gordon, on Tuesday.

"Puwedeng tumawag ang mga na-test sa 1158 at hahanapin namin ang pangalan niyo dun, kung ibigay niyo email niyo at cellphone number, at pagkatapos papadala namin sa email niyo [ang result] na certified ng aming mga doktor sa Red Cross," Gordon told Unang Balita in an interview.

Gordon said this is to ensure that the results will reach the person who was tested at the earliest possible time, as he noted cases where the person who was tested did not receive the result at all.

Gordon said it only takes the PRC one to three days to test the swab samples sent to them by government agencies and local government units, and that the bottleneck on the release of results is at the government agencies where the PRC is forwarding the information.

"Pag natanggap namin [yung sample], almost the next day tapos yung test. Ang pinakamatagal nun tatlong araw. Pinapadala sa kanila (government agencies) pero di umaabot sa tao," he said.

Gordon also lamented the encoding problems on the part of the government agencies conducting the swabs.

"Kami tiga-test lang, ang taga-swab gobyerno. Pagkatapos dadalhin nila yung kanilang mga data [sa amin], alright? Dapat yun encoded properly. Nahuhuli ko minsan nagkakamali-mali sa encoding. Di namin tatanggapin kung mali pero maraming nakalusot," he said.

However, Gordon said he is not blaming anybody, noting that they are operating under a "new system."

"Hindi ako naninisi ha kasi bago itong sistema," he said, adding everybody is "tired."

"Hindi ko sisisihin 'tong mga taga-gobyerno, pagod lahat iyan." --KBK, GMA News