CENTRAL VISAYAS SET TO DEPLOY ADDITIONAL 30 NURSES TO NCR+

THIRTY more nurses from Central Visayas will be sent to the medical facilities in National Capital Region Plus (NCR+) to reinforce their medical workforce in their Covid-19 response on Friday, April 16, 2021.

Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, spokesperson of the Department of Health (DOH) 7, said the fresh deployment is on top of the 50 medical workers who were already sent to NCR+ last week.

Sending at least 100 health workers to NCR+ was promised by the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas (Opav) to augment the areas’ medical personnel dealing with surging Covid-19 cases.

NCR+ covers the NCR and the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal. These areas are under modified enhanced community quarantine until April 30, 2021.

The additional 30 nurses are bound for Manila on Friday afternoon.

A total of P70,000 in cash incentives will be given to each of the health workers on top of their basic salary for their three months of service in NCR+. The incentives will be shouldered by Opav and the local government units where the nurses came from.

Loreche said seven of the 30 nurses are from the Nurse Deployment Program of the DOH 7; two, Barili; two, Cebu City; and one each from Cebu City, Carmen, Cebu, Pinamungajan, Danao City and Bohol. The rest are from the Temporary Treatment Monitoring Centers (TTMC) in the region.

Loreche said 20 nurses will be deployed to the National Center for Mental Health and 10 nurses will be deployed to Las Piñas General Hospital.

As the Covid-19 cases in Central Visayas are stable, Loreche said the nurses at TTMCs expressed their willingness to be pulled out from the isolation centers and quarantine facilities.

Meanwhile, Loreche reported that the critical utilization rate of both public and private hospitals in Central Visayas is below 27 percent.

The critical utilization rate of the private hospitals is 26.7 percent, far below the 70 percent threshold.

Loreche said there were only 231 Covid-19 patients. Of the 865 beds allocated for Covid-19, there were 634 vacant beds.

Loreche said they only reported the critical utilization rate of the private hospitals since the accommodation in the public hospitals is expandable.

She said the critical utilization rate of the public hospitals in Central Visayas is below 25 percent.