Kidapawan City's first COVID-19 treatment facility to open July 20

KIDAPAWAN CITY – The city’s first coronavirus disease 2019 treatment facility will be fully operational by Monday, July 20, a local health executive said Thursday.

Dr. Hamir Hechanova, chief of hospital of the Kidapawan City Hospital, said the treatment facility will cater to suspected, probable, and confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Photos and text by Malu Cadelina Manar

Hechanova said that before they converted the three-storey hospital into a COVID-19 treatment facility, it first underwent retrofitting early January this year due to damage it incurred from three strong earthquakes that hit several areas in the province of North Cotabato in October last year.

Likewise, he said they are awaiting the arrival of the COVID-19 testing machine, which will also be placed inside the city health complex.

Moreover, Hechanova said the First Floor of the treatment facility will be the laboratory area, and next to it is the city blood center. 

He told the local media that a brand new refrigerated centrifuge or the blood separator has finally arrived after a long wait.

Isolation rooms and modern treatment are placed on the Second, and Third Floors, according to the health executive.

“We don’t want to place suspected, probable, and confirmed COVID-19 cases in one place.  We have to separate each case to prevent complications,” he pointed out.

In the meantime, the city will use the Apo Summit Hotel, which was converted as the Kidapawan City Quarantine Center, as isolation facilities for those who had close or direct contact with confirmed COVID-19 cases, but are asymptomatic.

The facility, which Hechanova also manages, has more than 30 rooms.

Earlier, Mayor Joseph Evangelista said, “The city government has prepared the facility even though we no longer have COVID-19 patients.”

Early in June this year, a COVID-19 patient – an 84-year old male from the city's Barangay Sudapin  – was rushed to the Southern Philippines Medical Center for treatment, when he experienced shortness of breath, coughing, fever, and sore throat.  He died four days after his admission at the SPMC, reports said.  —LBG, GMA News