Mild COVID-19 cases urged to go to small hospitals to avoid overloading big ones

The head of Philippine Hospital Association (PHA) on Monday appealed to patients with mild COVID-19 symptoms to have themselves confined in smaller hospitals instead of the big ones, citing the latter's "overloaded capability."

Interviewed on Unang Balita, Dr. Jaime Almora said mild cases don't usually require the "critical equipment" that big hospitals offer.

"Nanawagan tayo sa mga pasyente ng may mild symptoms na sa maliit na ospital na kayo pumunta kasi overloaded na yung capability -- it's not actually the capacity but the capability -- ng malalaking ospitlas," he said.

(We are appealing to patients with mild symptoms to go to small hospitals because the capabilities of the big ones -- it's not actually the capacity but the capability -- are already overloaded.)

He said though big hospitals can expand their operations, their limited and overworked manpower is preventing them from doing so.

"Ordinarily, itong malalaking ospitals na ito, nakakapag-expand naman 'yan kaso sa sitwasyon na ito kulang sila sa manpower so hindi sila makapag-expand ng kanilang capacity," Almora said.

(Ordinarily, big hospitals can expand their operations but because of the current situation, they cannot do so due to limited manpower.)

With COVID--19 cases seeing a dramatic surge in the past few days, Almora said there is a need for additional manpower in hospitals as well as redistribution of patients, noting the preference of some patients in the provinces to be confined in Metro Manila hospitals.

"Hindi ho timeout ang solusyon, ang solusyon reinformcement. Kelangan natin ng reinforcement especially sa mga nursing services, napaka-strained na sila masyado, overworked na yung mga nurses natin," he said.

(Timeout is not the solution but reinforcement. We need reinforcement especially in the nursing services because our nurses are already overworked.)

Possible sources of additional nurses, he said, are the military and the police. He said thousands of nurses in private hospitals transferred to the military and police forces when the government increased the salaries of Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police personnel.

"Ironically, ang reinforcement na kailangan ngayon ng health services ay manggagaling sa military at sa police, kasi sila na ang pinakamalaking employer ng mga nurses," Almora said.

(Ironically, the reinforcement needed by the health services will come from the military and the police, because they are one of the biggest employers of nurses.)

In the police force alone, there are about 9,000 nurses doing "non-nursing jobs," he added.

Two of the biggest hospitals in Metro Manila -- UP-Philippine General Hospital (PGH) and St. Luke's Medical Center (SLMC) -- said over the weekend that they can no longer readily accept severe cases of COVID-19 needing emergency care as they are already reaching their full capacity.

The OCTA Research group projected Saturday that hospitals in the National Capital Region will reach full capacity in the first week of April as the country’s COVID-19 reproduction number neared two amid surging cases.  —KBK, GMA News