City hospitals in ‘safe zone’

All except one hospital in Cebu City have brought back to a safe level their critical care utilization rate (CCUR) on the use of beds for COVID-19 patients.

Based on the Department of Health (DOH)’s tracker, CCUR in all government hospitals has dropped to 52.7 percent, a bit higher than the figure released by the city’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at 47.6 percent.

The safe threshold for CCUR is 60 percent and below, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

EOC chief implementer, Councilor Joel Garganera, attributes the positive development to the utilization of step-down facilities that were established to accommodate patients who need hospital care badly.

For example, patients of the Cebu City Medical Center can be transferred to the Cebu City Quarantine Center, those from the St. Anthony Mother and Child Hospital can be transferred to the barangay isolation center, and those from the Vicente Sotto Hospital can be transferred to a designated area at the Department of Public Welfare and Development (DPWH).

These hospitals, too, have mastered triaging, Garganera said.

“Like St. Anthony Hospital for example, their postpartum COVID positive patients, instead of staying three to four more days in the hospital, they are referred to our City Central BIC, likewise CCMC to CCQC, in VSotto to DPWH,” he explained.

The Cebu City Medical Center has a CCUR of 56.3 percent, Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center has 54.5 percent, St. Anthony Mother and Child has 53.8 percent, and Camp Lapu-Lapu’s hospital has 30 percent.

Private hospitals, for their part, have an overall CCUR of 46.4 percent. Ten hospitals are back in the safe zone, except Perpetual Succour hospital, which still has a CCUR of 84.2 percent.

The 10 hospitals in the safe zone are Visayas Community Medical Center (57.1%), Velez (51.7%), North General Hospital (47.8%), Chong Hua Hospital (44.2%), St. Vincent (38.9%), Cebu Puericulture Center and Maternity Hospital (30%), Ace (29.2%), CDU (25%), Adventist (23.1%), and SWU-Phinma Hospital (17.2%).

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Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez commended the lowering of CCUR in Cebu.

“Magandang balita po Mr. President na once bumaba yung Cebu, baka bumaba na din yung Metro Manila and other parts of the country,” Galvez told President Rodrigo Duterte during the President’s “Talk to the People”.

Galvez said protocols of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) have been followed.

“Talagang sinunod ang protocols na binigay nang IATF at eto ang magandang balita na nakikita natin na nung sumunod yung Cebu sa IATF, at the same time, they executed yung magandang barangay response… maganda po ang ginagawa po nang nga unit nang DILG talaga po yung nga LGUs sumunod sa ating protocols. Nakita po natin bumaba yung Cebu,” Galvez said.

He said there are only 13 regular COVID patients remaining at the emergency rooms spread across all 16 private hospitals based on the daily report submitted on September 18.

“There were zero ICU COVID ER patients awaiting admissions into the ICUs of these private hospitals,” he said.

Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, chief pathologist of the Department of Health (DOH)-7, said Cebu’s containment measures and protocols have worked even with the presence of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus.

She said additional provisions like “puyo” or stay at home order, the liquor ban, and more aggressive contact tracing and quarantine have helped, as well as the enhancement of Temporary Treatment and Monitoring Facilities (TTMF).

She also made special mention of the unwavering commitment of medical frontliners and the close collaboration between the public and private sectors.

“We thank the national government for recognizing the efforts of Cebu. Worth mentioning is the fact that Cebu can be a benchmark on how surges of cases can be successfully handled,” Loreche said.

At the moment, Cebu City has 1,183 active cases spread in 69 barangays.

Aside from those in hospitals, other patients are at different isolation facilities.

The piece of bad news, however, is the rise of the number of deaths at 80 in September alone.