Mayor Jerry P. Treñas has “blamed” neighboring provinces, particulary Iloilo province, for the high utilization rate of Iloilo City’s healthcare facilities.
The healthcare utilization rate (HCUR) for COVID-19 in the city is classified as “high risk.” HCUR refers to the occupancy of intensive care unit, isolation and ward beds.
In a news release, the city government expressed worry that the increasing number of COVID-19 patients from neighboring towns and provinces could jeopardize the city’s HCUR.
Mayor Jerry Treñas said hospitals in the city continue to accept patients mostly coming from the provinces of Iloilo, Antique and Aklan.
“The continued admission of patients coming from outside Iloilo City resulted in the declaration of our strictest quarantine classification. With that, we may not really recover from ECQ,” he stressed in his letter the National Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF).
The letter sought to reassess the city’s enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) status.
Treñas also requested the IATF and the Department of Health (DOH) to assist the city’s neighboring provinces to open more ICU beds to lessen the burden on the hospitals in the city to accept their very own constituents afflicted by COVID-19.
“This shall benefit not only exhausted health care workers, in particular, but the whole Region 6 in general,” he said.
The city’s high HCUR is greatly attributed to its healthcare systems being a catch basin of at least 45% to 70% critically ill patients referred by neighboring towns and provinces.
COVID-19 wards at 88.76% is “critical”. Both ICU beds at 84.52% and mechanical ventilation for COVID at 75.61% are classified as “high risk.”
The city has total HCUR of 71.38% or “high risk” based on the health system monitoring capacity of the DOH as of Aug. 5, 2021.IMT
