Nurses’ performance ‘compromised’ amid increase in COVID-19 cases —FNU

The performance of nurses is being “compromised” as they are forced to handle as many as a dozen patients at a time amid a fresh uptick in COVID-19 cases, the Filipino Nurses United (FNU) said Tuesday.

In an interview on Super Radyo dzBB, FNU Secretary General Jocelyn Andamo said “nakakaawa at nakakalungkot po ang kalagayan ng mga nurses (the plight of nurses is pitiful and saddening).”

“Ideally, ang isang nurse ay magha-handle lang po ng three to six COVID patients. Pero ngayon po ay nagha-handle sila ng 10 hanggang 12 COVID patients regardless pa po ng kalagayan ng pasyente... Kaya napakahirap po ng sitwasyon,” she said.

(Ideally, one nurse would handle three to six COVID-19 patients but now, they handle 10 to 12 COVID-19 patients regardless of the condition of the patient… That’s why the situation is really dire.)

“Masasabi po natin nako-compromise ‘yung kalidad [ng serbisyo] at saka siyempre po ‘yung mga nurse halos ‘di na makakain, halos ‘di na makapag-CR at karamihan po ay nagususot na nga po ng diapers hindi lang para makatipid sa PPE,” Andamo added.

(We can say that the quality of service is compromised. And, of course, the nurses can hardly eat or go to the restroom and many even wear diapers just to save on personal protective equipment.)

The FNU earlier said there are not enough health workers to match the increase in hospital bed capacity. 

Andamo also reiterated that many nurses still have not received their benefits from the Bayanihan 2 law, which expired on June 30 this year. 

On Monday, the Department of Health (DOH) said it continues to hire more health workers amid the increase in COVID-19 cases. 

The agency also said it would recompute the number of health worker augmentation needed by hospitals to account for the highly contagious Delta variant.

The DOH on Monday also said the highly contagious Delta variant has been found in 13 of the 17 regions across the Philippines. To date there are 450 Delta variant cases in the country, and 355 are local cases.

The Philippines reported 8,900 new COVID-19 infections on Monday, driving up the total number of cases to 1,667,714.

Of this number, 78,480 are active; 1,560,106 recovered; and 29,128 died. —KG, GMA News