Filipino health workers getting infected amid PPE shortage

Six-year-old Alirie Joy begged to see her dad on his birthday. And when police corporal Jhamal Inapan arrived after two weeks at the anti-COVID-19 frontlines, the child met him outside the door in proper protective attire. Alirie wore a plastic trash bag, a homemade facemask, and clear plastic wrap over the head as she handed him a cake. Father and daughter hugged for some minutes, and after viewing from a distance his newborn son in his wife’s arms Inapan sped back to duty with the Bacolod city police.

The scene posted on Facebook dramatized Filipino improvisations to cope with the lethal virus. Even health workers in constant prolonged exposure to peril have to make do amid shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE). About 800 doctors, nurses and hospital staff are down with infection, the Dept. of Health said days ago; 40 are from the premiere testing and treatment Research Institute for Tropical Medicine. Casualties are rising daily. Twenty-seven doctors and nurses have perished in line of duty.

Some officials traced to carelessness at work or home the sickness of health workers. (The RITM clerk who infected colleagues supposedly caught the virus while buying groceries.) Medical staff know better. Those in two state hospitals in Metro Manila anonymously sought PPE donations as superiors allegedly barred them from publicizing their plight. A Visayas provincial legal officer memoed a warning that such solicitations constitute graft and corruption, so the staffs must course requisitions through proper channels. Yet the bureaucracy is tied up in red tape. Some shipments of donations from abroad had to be forfeited as Good Samaritans could not get on time the required DOH clearances.

Not only doctors and nurses but also x-ray and lab techs, even hospital room cleaners need PPEs. Patients expel viral loads while exhaling or talking. Swabbing specimens alone deep from the nose or throat can induce coughing or vomiting. Hazard material suits, N95 masks, caps, goggles, face shields, rubber gloves, plastic aprons, and booties are basic. Protocols are for single use. New pandemic rules also prescribe COVID-19 protective gear even in unrelated emergency procedures. But wearers have taken to reusing items after steaming in rice cookers. They don adult diapers to not waste precious time and protective commodities. A set costs P3,000-P8,000.

PPE scarcity is global. Output from China, the factory of half the world’s masks and haz-mats, had dropped when makers closed in Jan.-Feb. due to COVID-19 outbreak there. As China churns out PPEs anew, rich countries are scrambling for resupply. The US, presently the epicenter of pandemic, has only one-third of PPEs compared to imports in 2018. French officials complained that American buyers diverted an air shipment to Paris from Shanghai by tripling the price. Britain too is frantic. The military had to be mobilized to assemble into kits 763 million PPE pieces scattered in cities. Even in that country of A-1 healthcare, 20 Filipino nurses have died from scant protection from infection, the Philippine ambassador to London reported. In America and Europe upholstery makers have shifted to producing medical gowns, distilleries to sanitizers, apparel shops to masks, and plastics makers to face shields. Poor countries are elbowed out of the supply chains.

Aside from medical insurance and death indemnity for Health Warriors, government is to purchase P11 billion in PPEs and supplies. It will have to wait in line. Private donors are coming to the rescue. Dramatic was San Miguel Corp.’s dole of 40,000 sets to public hospitals last weekend. A Boeing-777 swiftly was chartered to get from China the haz-mats, goggles, and gear before anyone else did. That’s apart from P500 million the conglomerate is giving local PPE makers to ramp up mass production. Health workers need peace of mind that they’re fully protected and equipped, SMC president-COO Ramon S. Ang remarked. “That is why when the opportunity came up to buy this much, we grabbed it, chartered and filled to the brim a large aircraft to bring in the supplies.” Ang earlier scooped up for donation the first 10,000 PPEs by factories of the Confederation of Wearable Exporters of the Philippines. He will buy up the succeeding 10,000 medical-grade suits per day, specs approved by DOH and Philippine General Hospital. SMC also has given away to soldiers, policemen and slums over P227 million in canned foods, meat and poultry products, rice, biscuits, coffee, dairy, and flour.

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Now open as COVID-19 quarantine facility is the refurbished Ninoy Aquino Stadium at Rizal Memorial Sports Complex, Manila. The Manuel V. Pangilinan Group of Companies is to provide free utilities: water from Maynilad, electricity from Meralco, and WiFi from PLDT-Smart.

Metro Pacific Tollways provided the initial 350 beds; Metro Pacific Investment Corp., ventilators, electrocardiograph machines, defibrillators, mobile x-rays, components of mobile labs, and PPEs.

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Please, bishops: advise your priests, lectors and readers in online masses to sanitize the mike that they alternately use and adjust. It’s for their own good, against droplets possibly carrying COVID-19 viruses. Such gesture also can reinforce precautions in the minds of the faithful.

Too, kindly refrain them from announcing the corporate and individual sponsors before and during the mass. If they must enumerate, closing credits will do, though most donors do not wish to cheapen their acts with publicity.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8 to 10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

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