Defensor admits: Iloilo province still dependent on Iloilo City’s hospitals

Governor Arthur Defensor Jr. has admitted that the province of Iloilo is still dependent on Iloilo City’s hospitals, which are mostly equipped with modern facilities.

“Halin sang gintawo ang Local Government Code of 1991 kag nangin highly urbanized city ang Iloilo City, wala pa gid man nalutas ang probinsya sa Iloilo City. Amo na ang relasyon ta. Isa na dira sa konsekwensya, amo ni nga dependent ang mga taga-probinsya, even Antique, Aklan and Capiz ha, sa mga tertiary hospitals sa syudad,” Defensor said in an interview over radio station Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo.

“Ang tertiary hospital sang probinsya nga naandan sang probinsya, kag syudad man, amo ang Western Visayas Medical Center [in Mandurriao district, Iloilo City] nga not so long ago, amo na siya ang Iloilo Provincial Hospital. Amo na nga may dependence ang province dira,” the governor further said.

Defensor was reacting to the statement of Mayor Jerry P. Treñas that majority of the patients, especially those infected with the coronavirus, admitted in hospitals in the city for treatment came from Iloilo province and other neighboring provinces.

Treñas attributed the city’s high healthcare utilization rate (HCUR) to the influx of patients from Iloilo province, Antique and Aklan, and Guimaras.

He noted that only 30% of patients in the city’s hospitals are residents while 70% are from neighboring provinces.

This, the mayor said, resulted in the escalation of the city’s quarantine classification to ECQ.

“With that, we may not really recover from ECQ,” he lamented.

The provincial government runs a total of 12 district hospitals but due to limited intensive care unit (ICU) beds, critical patients are referred to tertiary hospitals in the city.

“It’s not really viable sa isa ka daku nga ospital nga private nga magpatindog abi sang amo na nga klase nga ospital, healthcare business, sa probinsya. That is why the dependence is there,” said Defensor.

Earlier, Treñas appealed to the National Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) and the Department of Health (DOH) to help rural hospitals increase their ICU beds and health personnel.

“This shall benefit not only exhausted health care workers, in particular, but the whole Region 6 in general,” he said.IMT