DOH-standard isolation facility for every Mati brgy

DAVAO ORIENTAL, 19 Jan (PIA) - The City Government of Mati has included in its budget for pandemic preparedness and response a P26 million funding this year to build additional isolation facilities in every barangay.

Guesting in a recent episode of One Davao Presser, City of Mati Health officer Dr. Ben Hur Catbagan said City Mayor Michelle Rabat made the decision to put up additional isolation facilities with a budget of P1 million for every barangay.

To be built based on the standards of the Department of Health (DOH), the isolation facility is expected to take on future usage as emerging and re-emerging infectious disease center in every barangay or serving as an office handling such particular concern.

"Never again nga madakpan pa ta ingon an (Never again that we will be caught by this)i; we need to prepare our people and empower them for this kind of situation,"Dr. Catbagan was referring to COVID-19 pandemic that has caught everyone off guard.

He also revealed the recent approval of Mayor Rabat for acquisition of a digital notebook serving as a complementary support system for contact tracing of COVID-19 crisis center in the City of Mati.

With the digital notebook he had in mind to substantially reduce the number of hours to trace all the contacts of a COVID-19 positive case, get their names, and immediately call them notifying of their quarantine status.

Meanwhile, Dr. Catbagan gave details on how the city government of Mati had prepared for the expected surge in cases of COVID-19 after the holiday season during which influx of visitors was seen bound to happen, taking into consideration the tourist destination status of Mati.

He said the crisis management of the city had levelled up its search capacity management intended to immediately identify COVID-19 positive using rapid antigen test, "giving us leverage on case management," while waiting for results of the RTCR tests.

Aside from setting up its own COVID-19 isolation facilities, the city government had also established an extension isolation/quarantine facility in tie-up with the Congressional Office of House Representative Mayo Almario.

He also cited the December enforcement of Mayor Rabat's Executive Order No 110 on regulation of visitor arrivals as a factor in controlling COVID-19 positive cases during the holiday season

"We are MGCQ (modified general community quarantine) we are welcoming everybody but we set the guidelines," he said referring to policies to prevent spread of COVID-19 infection.

As expected, Dr Catbagan noted an estimated average of 26,000 visitors to Mati in December alone on top of the 1,000 locally stranded individuals that the crisis management center facilitated return to their residences.

He viewed as timely that the roll -out of City Ordinance No. 427 or the Disiplina Panahon sa Pandemya started in December during which the city government started issuing citation tickets to violators of COVID-19 protocols of the city. (PIA XI Jeanevive Duron Abangan)