Implementing Agency:
City Government of Pasig
Year Implemented:
7 April 2020-present
Themes:
Management for Productivity, Quality, and Agility, and Perspectives on Productivity, Governance, and Development
General Description
The Pasig City Government converted the Pasig City Children’s Hospital (PCCH) into a COVID-19 Referral Facility to accommodate patients in anticipation of a potential surge in cases.
Background and Problems
In the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pasig City General Hospital (PCGH) had a daily average of about 15 to 20 emergency patients who cannot be admitted because the hospital wards are already full. Among these are an average of 4 or 5 patients with pneumonia, which means they are most likely COVID-19 positive and in dire need of immediate admission. As a stop-gap measure, the hospital pitched 6-bed capacity isolation tents outside their main facilities, but worsening pandemic conditions showed these to be insufficient for addressing the needs of the infected citizens.
Temporary isolation tents outside PCGH (Source: Pasig City Government)
Solution and Impact
To improve the city’s capacity to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the population and on the healthcare system, the PCCH was converted into the Pasig City COVID-19 Referral Center, a facility dedicated to receiving and accommodating potential cases. The hospital’s bed capacity was increased from 65 to 150 and its spaces were assessed and organized into zones with specific designations and functions—the clean zone, the potentially contaminated zone or gray area, and the contaminated zone—to limit the opportunities for spreading the virus within the facility.
Since the PCCH was a Children’s Hospital, most of the equipment in the hospital are designed exclusively for treating children. This necessitated the procurement of new equipment such as portable ultrasounds, defibrillators, mechanical ventilators, transport ventilators, and medicines specific for treating patients with COVID-19, as well as HEPA filters and negative pressure exhaust systems for rooms in the contaminated zone, protecting people outside these rooms from infectious airborne particles (News Medical, 2021).
During the first month of its operations, doctors and nurses from the PCGH also rendered duty hours in the Referral Center, as the process of hiring emergency healthcare workers struggled to catch up with demand.
Milestones
In its first year, the Referral Facility has admitted over 1,100 patients. The City Government has also since transformed the Rizal High School into a centralized quarantine facility for mild and asymptomatic patients to expand the city’s patient isolation facilities.
In recognition of the City Government’s initiative, both Mayor Vico Sotto and the City of Pasig were both awarded with Plaques of Appreciation during the COVID-19 Response Service Awards (Manila Bulletin, 2020).
Photos
Pasig City Children’s Hospital (Source: CNN Philippines)
Pasig COVID-19 Referral Facility (Source: Pasig Local Government)
Sources
News Medical. (2021, February 18). What are Negative Pressure Rooms?
https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-are-Negative-Pressure-Rooms.aspx
Manila Bulletin. (2020, October 23). Pasig City receives recognition for COVID-19 response.