Kidapawan City treatment facility for COVID-19 ready by first of July

KIDAPAWAN CITY –Government hospital located at the city’s commercial district will start its operations on July 1 as a treatment facility for COVID-19 patients, a local official said.

Mayor Joseph Evangelista said after the retrofitting of the Kidapawan City Hospital in the province of Cotabato has been completed, it is now ready to accommodate suspected COVID-19 patients that showed mild to severe flu-like symptoms.

According to Evangelista, the hospital has sustained cracks during the recent earthquakes and has since undergone retrofitting.

“It is a 30-bed capacity hospital equipped with facilities.  This is part of our preparation while we’re fighting against the pandemic,” the mayor said.

On Wednesday, newly-hired medical staff, including regular hospital employees, underwent training on handling would-be COVID-19 patients and those manifesting flu-like symptoms.

Medical staff include doctors, nurses, medical technologists or laboratory scientists, and radio technologists.

Reports said the facility will be managed and supervised by Dr. Hamir Hechanova being the chief of the Kidapawan City Hospital.

Latest data from the Department of Health in Region 12 show the city has registered two additional confirmed COVID-19 cases: one was a 20-year old male frontliner of the Cotabato Provincial Government who is quarantined at the University of Southern Mindanao (USM) Hospital in nearby Kabacan town; and the other one was an 84-year old male who was rushed in Davao City after showing severe flu-like symptoms and is now placed at the intensive care unit of the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC).

Earlier, the city mayor sent a team for benchmarking purposes at the Dr. Arthur Pingoy Medical Center in Koronadal City, the latest to acquire – through donation – a Genexpert Machine that can perform Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests.

He said a group is set to donate the same machine for Kidapawan City.

“If that is realized, it would be easy for us to determine COVID-19 cases in just few hours because of the machine,” he added.

In the meantime, Evangelista has directed all city hall employees, who might have been exposed to two COVID-19 patients, to undergo mandatory self-quarantine and refrain from reporting for work.   They are also advised to report to the City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (CESU) for strict monitoring. —LBG, GMA News