THE provincial government of Bulacan will temporarily use the new two-storey building of the Out-Patient Department (OPD) of the Bulacan Medical Center (BMC) in Malolos City as internal triage due to the continuous increase in COVID-19 cases in the province.
Since the BMC was designated as a temporarily exclusive referral facility for COVID-19 patients, the OPD section will now be available as internal triage to contain the arrival of suspected out-patients.
“The out-patient department building of the Bulacan Medical Center will be used first to prevent patients waiting in triage tents outside the BMC and Bulacan Infection Control Center (BICC) hospitals,” Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) Provincial Task Force overall chairman and Bulacan Governor Daniel Fernando said during the Bulacan Accelerated Vaccine Roll-Out in Barangay Panginay in Balagtas, Bulacan on Wednesday.
Provincial Task Force Response Cluster Head and Head of BMC Dr. Hjordis Marushka Celis said their health workers will still evaluate the COVID-19-positive patients at the triage if they are symptomatic or asymptomatic whether they will be confined or placed in the quarantine facility. “This is to ensure that severe patients do not mix with mild COVID-19,” Celis said.
Celis had earlier said that BMC’s current 200-bed capacity will be increased by 100 to 200 beds in response to the increase in COVID-19 cases.
The new OPD building is located parallel to the BICC in Capitol compound in Malolos City, which according to Celis, the Department of Health Region 3 Health Facility Enhancement Program spent P40 million on this upon the request of the Bulacan provincial government.
“Services provided at the OPD include laboratory tests of urine, stool, blood, electrocardiography or ECG, x-Ray, and CT Scan,” Celis added.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Bulacan’s Provincial Health Office (PHO) reported out of the total 54,427 COVID-19 cases in the province, 49,378 have already recovered, 3,929 are active cases and 1,120 have died.