With or without Sec. Duque’s help

PANGASINAN was not given a reprieve to be deemed qualified for a downgrade of its status from Enhanced Community Quarantine to General Community Quarantine, a move that could have enabled the province to move towards economic recovery.

The Department of Health (DOH) must have its reasons for doing so, perhaps noting that Pangasinan (and Dagupan City) still need to show it can fully contain the spread of human transmission of COVID-19.  Pangasinan is, after all the third largest province in the country.

Apparently, the missing link for Pangasinan is that it has not been able to pinpoint where the epicenter for COVID-19 lies, and the reason for this is it has not launched mass testing for suspected carriers. Hopefully, as the Pangasinan Health Office has assured, that the mass testing will finally start this month.

But testing is one thing, getting results quickly is another for faster detection. In this regard, the need for a testing center in the province has become imperative, which led the medical sector in Pangasinan to wonder: Why did the DOH, led by a Pangasinense in the person of Dr. Francisco Duque III, choose to accredit the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center as the DOH testing center in the North, not the Region1 Medical Center in Dagupan City, being DOH’s own managed hospital?

We do hope that DOH Sec. Duque will soon see the urgency to accredit one hospital in Pangasinan as a testing center to boost efforts of the provincial government to fully contain the virus and effectively protect Pangasinan lives.

Pangasinan has till May 15 to achieve this mission, with or without Sec. Duque’s help.

 

Genuine VIP

IN any war, the FL (Front Liner) is the first to fight. He either dies or survives.  It’s been that way in World War I from 1914 to 1918 that claimed some 20 million lives.  It’s been that way in World War II from 1939 to 1945 that killed 75 million, 20 million of them were military personnel.  The present war against the COVID-19 pandemic has infected more than three million already in nearly 206 countries.  Thousands have died, including FLs aka health workers deployed in hospitals. Even doctors are not spared. Italy has lost almost 50 physicians already and the Philippines 12.   Common sense tells us to treat our FLs with extra care at all times because our salvation now rests in their hands.  If there’s one genuine VIP (Very Important Person) today, it is the Front Liner.  Anyone caught mistreating the FL is a menace to society.  He must be thrown to jail. Consigned to solitary confinement.  Swiftly.

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