Baguio health care utilization rate now at low risk
The city’s hospital critical care utilization rate dropped to low risk following the continuous decline in Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 2019 cases being recorded over the past several months.
City Health Officer Dr. Rowena Galpo stated that the latest hospital critical care utilization rate in the city is only 29.72 percent with only 2 hospitals having confined COVID-19 patients in their respective available beds.
She disclosed that only the State-run Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) and the Notre Dame de Chartres hospital have reported having confined COVID-19 patients while the Baguio Medical Center, the Pines City Doctors Hospital and the St. Louis University (SLU) Sacred heart Hospital have zero occupancy of their available isolation beds, mechanical ventilators and intensive care unit (ICU) beds BGHMC reported a 42.08 percent occupancy rate while the Notre Dame de Chartres hospital has an occupancy rate of 20 percent.
On the other hand, the city health officer also reported that the occupancy rate in the different isolation units in the city was only 2.9 percent compared to the more than 5 percent occupancy rate during the previous week.
From the 920 beds available in the different isolation units in the city, the same was reduced to only 402 following the temporary closure of some isolation centers to help save on cost of maintaining and operating the said units without being occupied due to the continuous decrease in COVID-19 cases.
Galpo said that the isolation units that are currently operational include the 350-bed Baguio City Community Isolation Unit based at the former Sto. Nino hospital, the 30-bed Ferioni apartment, the 12-bed central triage and the 10-bed quarantine facility for returning Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) based at the Magsaysay Hall of the Baguio Teachers Camp.
However, she claimed that the isolation units that were temporarily closed such as the 417-bed Roxas and Romulo halls of the Baguio Teachers Camp and the 101-bed Laurel Dorm 2 along Bonifacio St. can still be opened once there will be a future surge in COvID-19 cases that may require available beds to cater to the isolation requirements of suspected and probable cases.
The medical officer expressed hope that the continuous decline in the number of positive COVID-19 cases will be the trend amidst the emergence of the more infectious and more transmissible Omicron variant to help in the ongoing efforts of concerned government agencies and the local government to gradually and safely revive the heavily impacted local economy.
The personnel in the isolation facilities that were temporarily closed were allowed to continue their services to help in the ongoing implementation of the government’s mass vaccination program that had achieved a 100 percent vaccination rate for the eligible adult population in the city.
Galpo stipulated that the city remains vigilant on the latest developments on the Omicron variant to ensure that the local government will always be prepared for whatever any eventuality that will be created following the presence of the said variant in the country with the positive genome sequencing that had been conducted on the swab samples of a returning OFW and a Nigerian national who arrived in the country early this month. – Dexter A. See
