After being overwhelmed by COVID-19 surge, hospital referral center hires more staff
MANILA, Philippines — The One Hospital Command Center which refers COVID-19 patients to hospitals has hired more staff to assist in its operations, the government’s treatment czar said Wednesday.
Health Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega told state-run People’s Television that they have recruited around 80 more personnel, including doctors, medical coordinators, IT staff and call agents.
“We’ve improved the services of the One Hospital Command as we’ve expanded our human resource,” Vega said in Filipino.
Vega also shared that they have improved the technology that they use at the command center, which has relocated to the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City from the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority’s headquarters in Mandaluyong City.
“We’ve increased our equipment like the PBX system, laptops and so forth,” he said.
In March, Vega admitted during a congressional inquiry that the command center only had a “very basic” setup, which left its hotline manned by only 30 agents unreachable to many as calls surged from just 70 a day to nearly 400.
The command center was opened in August 2020, when the country was also facing a surge of COVID-19 cases and medical facilities were reporting that they were getting overwhelmed and running out of beds for coronavirus patients.
COVID-19 response chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. then said that the command center will ease the coordination and referral of patients across health facilities and ensure there are enough hospital beds for severe and moderate coronavirus cases. — Xave Gregorio
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