Medical group wants IATF-EID overhaul

A group advocating for the rights of healthcare workers called on the government to overhaul the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).

Dr. Magdalena Barcelon of the Solidarity of Health Advocates and Personnel for a Unified Plan to Defeat COVID-19 (SHAPE UP) said that more than a year into the pandemic, the government has yet to provide a concrete strategy to end the health crisis.

She said public health experts, social scientists, epidemiologists, virologists, and other specialists should be designated in the IATF-EID and not former military officials.

“Public office is a position of public trust. The pandemic is a public health crisis and must be approached with medical solutions and not punitive military interventions,” Barcelon said during a webinar on Wednesday.

“The Filipino people deserve better than this current chaotic and disastrous COVID response,” she added.

She also called for the reorientation and reorganization of existing government structures for pandemic response from the national, local, departmental, fiscal and implementing field personnel.

Amid the rising cases of COVID-19 in the country, Barcelon said there should be systematic, coordinated, and supportive referrals of health facilities and hospitals at all levels from the barangays to national, tertiary hospitals, and both private and public.

The group also called to improve health services for the public by providing free health care and medicines in all public health facilities.

It said the government should ensure comprehensive and people-centered health measures by providing free masks and face shields, massive public health education campaigns, adequate and equipped isolation facilities and unhampered services for non-COVID-19 patients.

It also called for free mass testing and aggressive contact tracing to prevent the further spread of the virus.

More health workers

The group also called for the mass hiring of health personnel instead of augmentation or redeployment of those with regular positions.

“There should be increased and adequate compensation and benefits to adequately attend to the surge of patients,” Barcelon said.

Aside from the provision of complete, appropriate and high quality personal protective equipment, the group said there should be free swab testing every two weeks of duty for all health workers, and free transportation and lodging.

Earlier, the Department of Health said the government had enough funds to augment the health workforce amid a new surge in COVID-19 cases but lamented that only a few health workers were “heeding the call.”

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire added that the DOH had given hospitals enough funds to hire health workers directly. — BM, GMA News