13,188 Covid-19 patients by city isolation centers
Some thirteen thousand one hundred eighty-eight Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 2019 patients were given appropriate medical attention by the medical officers and health workers in the various accredited temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMFs) or isolation centers in the city over the past two years.
City Budget Officer Leticia O. Clemente stated that of this number, there were more females numbering to around 6,612 while males accounted for 6,576.
She claimed that patients aged 18 to 59 accounted for the greatest number of patients with 11,299 followed by those aged 60 and above with 946, and patients aged 17 and below with 943.
The city budget officer pointed out that the patients served at the various isolation facilities, such as the Baguio City Community Isolation Unit and the Baguio Teachers Camp isolation center, include those confined at the V-dorm and Laurel dorm that housed quarantined health care workers.
On the other hand, Clemente reported that during the pandemic, the city government hired some 265 additional job order personnel to augment the city’s existing health workers to attend to the concerns of those individuals who are suspected or probable COVID-19 patients.
According to her, 136 job order personnel were assigned in the vaccination, contact tracing, encoding, registry and data management centers, while 65 similarly situated personnel were assigned to augment the work force in the TTMFs and isolation centers.
Moreover, there were some 55 job order personnel who were immediately deployed to the Baguio Convention Center (BCC) central triage facility; 5 job order personnel assigned with the Baguio City Emergency Medical Services and 4 personnel to the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (LDRRMO) response augmentation.
However, she admitted that the contracts of these job order personnel will be expiring by the end of the month.
For her part, City Health Officer Dr. Rowena Galpo recommended for the renewal of a limited number of job order personnel who will be assisting the City Health Services Office (CHSO) and other offices in the city’s ongoing COVID-19 response because of uncertainties of the situation in the coming months because of the emergence of the various variants of the virus that are now present in the country.
The city health officer said that the CHSO will be making the appropriate recommendation to the city’s local finance committee on the limited number of job order personnel who can be renewed probably for the next 3 months after the expiration of their contracts by the end of the month when the situation will again be assessed and evaluated if there will be a need to renew them again up to the end of the year to help in enhancing the city’s COVID-19 response efforts.
Clemente, on the other hand, stipulated that the renewal of the contracts of the recommended job personnel will be depend on funds of the city government saved from the previous implementation of COVID-19 response efforts, programs and projects. – Dexter A. See
