CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — Gov. Dennis ‘Delta’ Pineda offered temporary accommodation for the healthcare workers of the Diosdado P. Macapagal Memorial Hospital and some health personnel of Jose B. Lingad Regional Memorial Hospital who preferred not to go home amid the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine.
Board members Ananias “Jun” Canlas Jr. and Anthony Joseph Torres said the governor has decided to provide free accommodation due to discrimination experienced by the healthcare workers in their respective boarding houses where the owners wanted them to temporarily vacate the housing facilities to purportedly avoid the possible spread of Covid-19 in their respective areas.
They said other healthcare workers decided not to go home to protect the health of their families from possible contamination and infection.
The temporary shelter is a hotel-like facility with a 70-room capacity that can accommodate two personnel in every room with consideration to physical or social distancing.
The facility located in this city was offered by the provincial government to assist the frontline healthcare workers in their temporary accommodation until such time that Covid-19 would be contained in the province.
Aside from the hotel accommodation, the governor will also provide free food provision and transportation for the said healthcare workers who would like to go to the hotel or report for work at the said hospitals as an act of compassion and solidarity.
Through this, the provincial government can easily manage to pull out off-duty medical personnel from the hotel in case an urgent need exists and their services are needed.
It was learned that as of this time, the province has not enough healthcare personnel. Some of them underwent a mandatory quarantine procedure due to exposure to some suspected Covid-19 patients.
Initially, 55 personnel from DPMMH and 30 from JBLRMH signified their intention to accept the offer by the provincial government.
It can be recalled that public transportation has been suspended due to the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine that took effect recently.
Public utility buses, jeepneys, tricycles and vehicles under transport network services are not allowed to ply the streets.
