Aside from increasing isolation facilities, the city is also looking at hiring more medical personnel to augment manpower in hospitals.

“The city is currently expediting the scheme to possibly provide augmentation of the manpower of private hospitals that have earlier declared full occupancy of their dedicated Covid-19 beds,” said Aileen Refuerzo, chief of the city’s public information office (PIO), in an interview on Friday.

The PIO earlier said city Budget Officer, Lawyer Leticia Clemente, has advised the city’s management committee that they can hire health workers on a job order basis who will be assigned to the various private hospitals that are in need of more personnel.

The salaries of the job order medical workers could be drawn from the city’s current appropriations for coronavirus disease 20191 (Covid-19) response efforts.

Clemente, however, said the City Health Services Office (CHSO) will have to closely coordinate with the management of the private hospitals to thresh out implementation parameters.

The hiring of health workers plus the increase in bed capacity of Covid-19 hospitals will address the critical risk status of the city as far as the hospital care utilization rate (HCUR) is concerned.

Based on data from the Department of Health-Cordillera, Baguio City’s critical care utilization rate is 86.71 percent while the region’s overall healthcare utilization rate is at 70.33 percent which is categorized as high risk.

Refuerzo said with the surge in cases being experienced in the city, the local government is looking for other ways to help hospitals expand their own operations such as increasing the capacity of the city-managed community isolation unit.

The former Sto. Niño hospital which was converted as the main isolation facility is currently managing not just asymptomatic patients but has agreed to also accommodate the “step-down” Covid patients of the hospitals to be able to declog the medical facilities and allow them to accept the moderate to critical cases.

Refuerzo said the city is working double time to increase the bed capacity of isolation facilities, improving and providing more hospital beds and other equipment for the step-down recovering patients.

Refuerzo said the city has upgraded 50 beds for step-down occupancy and will add 50 new ones as replacement.

She also said the National Task Force against Covid-19 has also agreed to install modular tents at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center.

She added that the city also responded to the appeal of hospital workers to provide a stay-in facility where they can bunk in while attending to their hospital duties and protect their families from the danger of contracting the virus from them.

Two hotels – Travel Light and Eurotel – are now being commissioned to serve this purpose. (PNA)