4 other Philippine regions running out of virus beds

MANILA: Aside from Metro Manila, hospitals in four other regions on the main island of Luzon have been running out of beds especially in their intensive care units (ICUS) mainy due to the unabated surge in coronavirus ( COVID-19) infections, according to a ranking health official.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire these are the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Cagayan Valley both in the Northern Luzon highlands, Central Luzon and Calabarzon which stands for the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon, considered one of the richest and fastest growing regions in Southern Luzon.

Vergeire said these regions, along with Metro

Manila, are considered either “critical” or “high risk” areas as a result of the alarming spike in COVID-19 infections that threatened to overwhelm their healthcare systems.

The unabated surge resulted in many of the public and private hospitals in these regions running out of their ICU hospital beds with Metro Manila remaining as the epicenter of the pandemic.

And for a reason, officials said. Metro Manila, known officially as the National Capital Region and considered the seat of the national government, is composed of 16 cities and one town with a population of more than 12 million.

Vergeire reiterated that the high occupancy rates in these hospitals arose from the continuing rise in COVID cases.

“Another reason that we may considered are the patients who were mild but progressed to severe so they had to be transferred to the ICU,” she pointed out.

Still another reason, Vergeire said, was the possibility that many of the mild and asymptomatic (showing no symptoms) patients continued to be accepted at the ICUS instead of being brought to isolation facilities.

But officials assured the problem would ease ater hospitals started “declogging” their crowded ICUS by transferring their patients found to be suffering from mild or being asymptomic by transferring to newly-built quarantine facilities not only in Metro Manila but also in neighboring provinces such as Tarlac and Pampanga in Luzon.

Meanwhile, Eric Domingo, the chief of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday reported that they have granted a “compassionate special permit” to another hospital to use the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin as a potential treatment for COVID-19.

This brought to three number of hospitals granted such permit but Domingo withheld their names in his testimony before a special committee of the House of Representatives on the issue of available COVID treatments in the country.