BGHMC IN BAGUIO, ONLY TESTING CENTER

REGION 1 can have as many as four COVID-19 testing centers if only the Department of Health looks into available and qualified facilities in the region.

This was the view expressed by Dr. Roland Joseph Mejia, director of the Region 1 Medical Center (R1MC) in Dagupan City, who also cited his frustration over the continued bureaucracy at the DOH that has failed to act on R1MC ‘s application to be a testing center.

So far, only the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center has been accredited by DOH in spite of R1MC’s application filed in February.

He said R1MC has the machine to conduct the tests and three trained personnel.

He bewailed the policy that required accreditation policy in the midst of crisis when the region can provide four testing centers including Baguio City.

Aside from the R1MC, Mejia said the Ilocos Training and Regional Medical Center in La Union, the Mariano Marcos Memorial Hospital and Medical Center in Ilocos Norte, that are fully capable to do COVID tests but none of has been accredited by DOH.

He said he found it ironic that swab tests for COVID-19 of patients from Pangasinan with a 3.8 million population have to be submitted to the Baguio General Hospital Medical Center.

“But we cannot do anything because that maybe is the advice of the “good” advisers of Sec. Duque,” Mejia said.

R1MC has done some 70 swab tests of its patients whose results are still pending. “We’re still waiting. In fact, one of our patients who died two weeks ago did not yet have the result,” he said.

He said based on what he had learned abroad on crisis and disaster management, during health emergency cases like COVID-19, the accreditation for laboratories must be set aside. “For as long as there are set standards that should be followed, it should already be a go,” he said.

“In an emergency situation, you still need accreditation? That’s foolishness,” Mejia said.
R1MC, Mejia said, already has three rooms for laboratory tests , a minimum requirement, with trained personnel and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machine can be bought for P3-million, although R1MC already has a machine with the same accuracy used for testing for tuberculosis , a process similar to COVID-19 testing but only reagents need to be purchased.

He urged the DOH to open its regional centers to conduct COVID tests to unclog the backlog of analysis of tests which the World Health Organization already noted that Philippines has one of the lowest number of people tested for possible COVID for every one million population.

America has examined about 20,000 people for every one million population while the Philippines only had 590, he said.

Only those who go to hospitals because they feel something different in their bodies are examined “but what about those asymptomatic?”, Mejia said.

“So they are like zombies going around,” he added. (PhilStar Wire Service/ECV)

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