Bong Go: Nurses should be tested

SEN. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go backed the appeal of the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) to help nurses under investigation for the coronavirus disease and have them tested.

Rosie de Leon, PNA national president, said nurses considered as persons under investigation (PUIs) should be given priority in the test.

“Our chief assistance nurse had to line up for testing. We ask that all PUI nurses be given priority. The number of nurses would be depleted if they are quarantined,” she added. Go agreed.

“Nurses and other health workers should be tested because they are most needed in this fight. We need to take care of our health workers so that they could take care their patients,” the senator said.

“Their daily exposure to patients open the possibility of them being infected. We should find out if they are Covid-19 positive or negative to avoid unnecessary quarantine. We need as many healthy nurses as we can get right now,” he added.

Go, chairman of the Senate health and demography committee, also reiterated his call for the Department of Health to capacitate more laboratories to perform Coved- 19 tests and for the Food and Drug Administration ( FDA) to hasten the process of approving applications of testing kits.

“It is proper to conduct tests in order to identify the areas and the persons for monitoring before treating them. Those with symptoms should be isolated to prevent the virus from spreading,” he said.

“Let us hear the complaints of health workers, doctors and nurses. Let us help them because they know what to do to put an end to the health emergency that the country is experiencing,” Go added.

The coronavirus tests are being done mostly in the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Muntinlupa City. Five hospitals have been allowed to can perform independent testing by real- time polymerase chain reaction ( PCR): National Institutes of Health Molecular Laboratory of the University of the Philippines, San Lazaro Hospital in Manila, Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center, Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City, and Southern Philippines Medical Center in Davao City.

On Monday, the FDA approved a PCR-based test kit that can detect the virus, bringing the total number of approved test kits to 18.

The FDA also approved the use of five rapid test kits, which measure the antibodies from a patient’s blood samples.