LA TRINIDAD, Benguet– The provincial government and the Cordillera office of the health department (DOH-CAR) recently opened the province’s third temporary treatment and monitoring facility (TTMF) to serve as an additional quarantine facility that will accommodate the increasing number of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.
Gov. Melchor D. Diclas and DOH-CAR assistant regional director Dr. Amelita M. Pangilinan led the ribbon cutting ceremony that paved the way for the province to use one of the structures of the State-run Benguet State University (BSU) as an extension of the Benguet General Hospital (BeGH) to cater to the isolation needs of asymptomatic and mild COVID-19 cases.
The local government was compelled to look for an additional quarantine facility following the continuous increase in the number of COVID-19 patients from the different parts of the province that need to undergo quarantine and isolation until such time that they are given a clean bill of health by their attending physicians.
Under the prevailing omnibus guidelines issued by the national inter-agency task force for the management of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, local governments are mandated to establish their respective TTMF that will serve as quarantine and isolation centers for asymptomatic COVID-19 patients to prevent them from undergoing home quarantine and limit the possible transmission of the deadly virus to the members of their families.
Earlier, the provincial government was able to establish its first TTMF at the province’s evacuation center in Wangal that is currently catering to the quarantine and isolation needs of similarly situated asymptomatic patients but the same had already reached its maximum carrying capacity.
The 3rd quarantine facility is expected to accommodate more than 30 confirmed COVID-19 patients at one time as the BeGH had also exceeded its maximum capacity of COVID-19 cases, thus, the need to work out the operation of the additional facility to accommodate the asymptomatic patients so that the symptomatic cases will be the ones that will remain under close medical supervision in the hospital.
Benguet has been placed by the national inter-agency task force under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) up to the need of the month as it remains under medium risk due to the significant number of confirmed cases being reported in the province daily.
The province was also able to get the nod of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the BSU administration for the temporary use of one of its dormitories as the second quarantine facility earlier that paved the way for the significant increase in the number of isolation beds that are available to cater to the increase in the number of COVID-19 cases triggered by the influx of locally stranded individuals and returning Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).
Since the implementation of the Luzonwide lockdown in March, the province had been constantly partnering with concerned government agencies, local governments and the private sector to strengthen its COVID-19 response operations amidst the surge in the number of confirmed cases following the conduct of aggressive testing and contact tracing as mandated by the omnibus guidelines to prevent the rapid transmission of the virus in the different parts of the province. By Hent