VSMMC suspends OB services for maintenance work

For eleven days, the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center will not be accepting obstetric cases as it will conduct an annual routine preventive maintenance of the labor and delivery rooms and obstetric wards starting July 12.

Pregnant women will be referred to Department of Health hospitals like St. Anthony Mother and Child Hospital in Basak-Cabreros, Cebu City and the Eversley Child Sanitarium and General Hospital in Mandaue City.

Dr. Emmanuel Gines, VSMMC media liaison officer, said that except for emergency cases, the hospital’s obstetrics ward will temporarily not accept “elective cases” or cases that do not require immediate medical attention.  “For emergency cases, modawat ta. We’ll try to find a space to accommodate them,” Gines said.

He explained that their infection control committee will conduct its annual routine preventive maintenance like scrubbing, cleaning and fumigating of the delivery and labor rooms, the neo-natal intensive care unit and obstetrics ward from July 12 to July 23.

The obstetrics ward has 45 to 50 beds good for one person per bed, but because of the number of patients that come to them, Gines said they are forced to accommodate up to more than 100 patients.

“We are doing this for public good. Basin unya magsige ta’g dawat unya ma-infected diay sila,” Gines added.

With this, VSMMC management advised the patients from the southern part of Cebu to go to St. Anthony while those from the north are referred to Eversley.

“This is to provide the public a safe and clean hospital environment,” VSMMC said in an advisory. — Wenna A. Berondo/MEEV