Duque 'trying to validate' if good number of COVID-19 casualties were DOA

A"good number" of COVID-19 casualties may have died on arrival at hospitals and Health Secretary Francisco Duque III is trying to validate if this could be the reason why more than 50 percent of them had not been admitted.

During the Senate hearing on the Department of Health's P203.74 billion budget for 2021, Senator Joel Villanueva pointed out that out of the 5,840 COVID-19 deaths in the country, 3,279 or 56% were not admitted into hospitals as of October 5.

"There seems to be a substantial number of deaths that have not been admitted but I think some of these, a good number, I'm trying to have it validated, have arrived dead on arrival on various emergency rooms of hospitals," Duque said.

"This is really unfortunate because the condition of the patient, once they arrive in the ER, becomes irreversible. DOA ang malaking bilang po nito but we are having this validated," he added.

Villanueva asked why 76% or 1,233 of the critical COVID-19 patients were not admitted to hospitals.

"We find these statistics more bothering considering that the DOH portal shows that as of October 6, 2020, 50% of ICU beds are still vacant," the senator said.

Duque said this had something to do with the health-seeking behavior of many Filipinos, especially the poor.

"Hinihintay lang na maging malubhang malubha na po ang karamdaman bago po pumunta sa ospital," Duque said.

The Health chief said this situation presses more need for the implementation of the Universal Health Care law to strengthen primary health care facilities in the communities.

As of October 9, the Philippines recorded a total of 334,770 cases of COVID-19 of whom 53,311 are still sick; 275,307 have recovered; and 6,512 died. -NB, GMA News