By Bhaby De Castro Batangas Gov. Hermilando Mandanas April 17, 2020 BATANGAS CITY - Batangas Gov. Hermilando Mandanas discussed the ...
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| Batangas Gov. Hermilando Mandanas |
BATANGAS CITY - Batangas Gov. Hermilando Mandanas discussed the provincial government's plan to decongest hospitals with persons under investigation (PUIs) in the April 8 edition of the PCOO Laging Handa Network Briefing initiated by the Philippine Information Agency and hosted by PCOO Sec. Ruperto Martin Andanar.
Gov. Mandanas said on air that they are preparing areas for Patients Under Investigation (PUI’s) especially those with symptoms so they can be removed from the hospitals and put them into isolation areas for proper caring and treatment.
“We are currently preparing our isolation areas so we can prevent the filling up of PUI’s in different hospitals in the province. We are also in constant coordination with the Department of Health (DOH) regarding this matter," Mandanas stressed during the interview.
"In the meantime we are providing our frontliners with the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) and barangay functionaries are our partners on this. The province has also released more than P100M, the 1st was last March 26 amounting to P21.5M and another P72M which was released last April 6 to the different local government units as assistance to the barangays in providing the necessary needs particularly food for their constituents,” Mandanas continued.
He added they are working closely with the Sangguniang Panlalawigan to realign funding so they can focus on the immediate needs of the Batanguenos while awaiting for the assistance from the national government.
Mandanas said he has already written a request to DOH Secretary Francisco Duque for the implementation of the Universal Health Care (UHC) Law because if funds are already downloaded we can arrange at least a 1,000 bed capacity that PUIs can use to decongest hospitals full of PUIs.
He noted even private sectors have a hand in helping Batangas cope up since it was not so long ago when the province mostly the Taal Lake District was devastated by the eruption of Taal Volcano. Some evacuees are still in evacuation centers particularly those who have nowhere to go like the residents of Volcano Island.
Meanwhile, Department of Social Welfare and Development Assistant Secretary Irene Dumlao, who also served as a guest on the said Network Briefing talked about the Social Amelioration Program (SAP).
“Our field office in Calabarzon is coordinating with our local chief executives and city/municipal social welfare officers to identify target beneficiaries of the SAP. An amount of P5k-P8k will be provided to families belonging to low-income sector, those who have family members in the informal sector and family members in the vulnerable sectors. The said provision of per family basis and not per individual”, Dumlao noted.
A Social Amelioration Card(SAC) will be distributed to the LGUs who will in turn distribute these on a house-to-house basis to target beneficiaries. It will serve as a profiling and validating tool where they can also monitor if the services were received by the beneficiary.
Mandanas, on the other hand said he can assure that target beneficiaries will receive the assistance since there are around 8,000 barangay health workers and barangay nutrition scholars in the whole province that were assigned to clustered families. (BHABY P. DE CASTRO-PIA Batangas)
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