hurry. Staff at the Saint Elizabeth Hospital in General Santos rushed a man from the tent to the intensive care unit for intubation. A few hours later, the patient died.
Due to stress and poor working conditions, many nurses at the Dr. Jorge P. Royeca Memorial Hospital (DJPRMH) operated by the City Hall have left and found jobs elsewhere due to the continuous increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the city.
The straw that crushes camels is that when they are caring for critically ill patients in COVID-19 facilities, they have to wear personal protective clothing for hours without going to the toilet.
The nurse told Rappler that in order to reduce the cost of personal protective equipment (PPE), they were required to wear adult diapers and work 12 hours per shift.
They said that the environment of the hospital's COVID-19 facility was unbearable, and many people quit their jobs and looked for jobs elsewhere.
On Monday, September 13, a nurse said: "Puwede naman pagaanin ang trabaho, say four or six hours, pero sayang daw'yung uses disposable PPE in Mahal."
(They could have reduced our workload by reducing working hours, such as four or six hours, but they said that PPE is expensive.)
The cost per piece of PPE ranges from P2,500 (US$50.11) to P3,000 (US$60.13), and once the health worker at the COVID-19 facility removes it, he or she can no longer wear it.
DJPRMH's COVID-19 facility also has 26 nurses working in shifts, down from 48 in previous months.
The nurses said they were instructed to wear PPE during the 12-hour shift in the COVID-19 facility.
They said they were also required to stay in the hospital for 12 days, plus a 7-day quarantine period, before they were allowed to go home and rest for a week.
At least eight of them left recently and were later transferred to a municipal hospital in the nearby province of Sarangani, where “working conditions and wages are much better”.
The head of DJPRMH, Dr. Ryan Aplicator (Ryan Aplicator) has not yet responded to inquiries about diaper requirements and nurses' working conditions. Once he does this, the story will be updated.
However, Alicador turned to Facebook on September 15 and asked nurse sources to talk to him instead of talking to Rappler. He also stated that the report contained "malicious content" and "malicious intent."
But at a meeting of the local health committee a week ago, Apricardo said that he understands nurses because, like everyone, they need to rest and they are also at risk of infection.
Antonio Veneracion, Chief Executive Officer of the Saint Elizabeth Hospital, stated that DJPRMH is not the only hospital with manpower problems in General Santos and elsewhere. The hospital sent a team of nurses to increase the number of people at the beginning of the pandemic. Frontline health workers in the capital in 2020.
Veneracion said that with the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in General Santos, they had to send nurses from the regular ward of the hospital to its COVID-19 facility.
"In our COVID-19 department, each nurse will take care of three patients. As the number of COVID-19 patients increases, we have to transfer more nurses to the facility," he said.
However, Veneracion said that as hospitals expand their capacity to accommodate more COVID-19 patients, the shortage of nurses and other medical staff has become more apparent.
He said that hospital resources and supplies, including life-saving medical oxygen tanks, are also decreasing.
As of Monday, September 13, St. Elizabeth's Hospital has placed at least 40 COVID-19 patients on the waiting list.
On Monday, General Santos recorded 144 new cases of COVID-19 infection. This is the third time this month that the city has recorded a three-digit number in one day.
Rommel Rebollido is a journalist from Mindanao and the winner of the Aries Rufo Journalism Scholarship
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