Iloilo City’s Health Care Utilization Rate (“HCUR”) due to Covid-19 is now mostly attributed to cases from other areas.
Mayor Jerry Treñas has appealed for lower alert status to the National Inter-Agency Task Force citing lesser cases among residents while most admissions are from outside the city.
“Some 25 percent of admissions are city residents while 75 percent are patients from other provinces, resulting to high health care utilization rate,” according to COVID -19 focal person Dr. Roland Jay Fortuna.
He said this is the main reason why the City Government requested for urgent installation of modular hospital even as it initiated the establishment of City Hospital, the construction of which will take two years.
This will address the admission needs of city residents who find it hard to secure a bed when healthcare facilities in the metropolis are reaching full capacity during COVID surge.
As short term solution, this will answer the problem on high HCUR which is being used as basis for escalation or de-escalation of alert level system.
“If there is high utilization of hospital beds and reaching full capacity, the alert level will also go up. That’s why we need to increase bed capacity that will be catering for Covid patients. The referrals from provinces increase the health care utilization rate of the city,” Fortuna said.
He added the Department of Health already inspected 32 beds out of 76-bed modular hospital to be issued license to operate.
City Hall personnel will be supervised by The Medical City Iloilo in managing the modular hospital.
The 100-bed City Hospital will be bid out for construction at Brgy. San Pedro, Molo, adjacent to the soon-to-be completed Molecular Laboratory, replacing the temporary lab at ALS building being utilized this time. (Iloilo City PIO)
