The medical director of a Makati-based hospital invited Filipinos to reconnect with their respective physicians for in-person consultations after the facility has logged zero census for COVID-19 patients since the pandemic began.
Dr. Gia Sison, head of the Wellness Center in Makati Medical Center, shared a statement by medical director Dr. Saturnino Javier who said that the situation “should inspire confidence among the scared and anxious patients.”
“For the first time in 20 months since March 2020, MMC posted zero census for COVID-19 patient in all the COVID-19 Wings and Critical Care Units [as of Dec. 6, 2021, 0600],” he said.
“Certainly, this can change anytime — but for now, this should inspire confidence and among the scared and anxious patients to get reconnected with their MMC physicians once again. Makati Med welcomes everyone who needs to be served. Thank you,” Javier added.
Sison shared the post on the microblogging platform with the caption, “Fight!”
Fight! pic.twitter.com/rfecH4a9cV
— Dr. Gia Sison (@giasison) December 6, 2021
Last week, Dr. Jonas del Rosario of the Philippine General Hospital also bared that there have been no COVID-related admissions to the public hospital.
“One good news is I was told [that] for the last two days, we have not admitted anybody for COVID. Our numbers are continuously going down,” he was quoted as saying in ANC’s “Headstart” on December 3.
PGH is the country’s biggest COVID-19 referral facility.
“That is good news because we can now open more, open our hospital to non-COVID patients,” Del Rosario added before.
According to the spokesman, PGH previously has four wards dedicated to COVID-19 patients, but they have “trimmed it down” and “were able to close three COVID wards and open it to non-COVID patients.”
“We are catering to our usual patients, those with heart problems, kidney problems, pulmonary problems, a big chunk of those with cancer, a lot of kids who now can come in again to get admitted. We are getting the regular patients that we usually get before the COVID pandemic,” Del Rosario said.
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began, non-COVID patients have been encouraged to teleconsult with their physicians instead of going to hospitals due to the risk of exposure with the virus, especially during the surge.
This is also the healthcare sector’s way of decongesting hospitals.
Teleconsultation is mostly done through video call, online chat or landline.
The Department of Health in a media forum on Monday said that the country is now at minimal risk for COVID-19 while the National Capital Region is at low risk classification.
“Nationally, we remain at minimal risk case classification with a negative two week growth rate at negative 57% and a low risk average daily attack rate at 0.67 cases for every 100,000 individuals. The national health systems’ capacity is at low risk,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire was quoted as saying.
“As of this date, all provinces, highly urbanized cities and independent component cities are at minimal to low risk case classification and are under Alert Level 2,” she added.
The health official also said that the country’s total bed and intensive care utilization units are at low-risk or at less than 50% usage.
She added that ICU admissions have steadily declined and is at low risk utilization at 26%.
As of Monday, there are 13,548 active COVID-19 cases in the country.
