Moreno: ‘Modular hospitals’ to augment JRBGH, Cereid

THE national government will assist in setting up ‘modular hospitals’ in Cagayan de Oro City to provide additional rooms for Covid-19 patients in response to the surge of cases in both the city and northern Mindanao, Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno said.

“Last Sunday morning I received a text message from (Ariel) Ayi Hernandez (presidential consultant on the peace process) informing me that vaccine czar (and concurrent presidential advisor on the peace process) Carlito Galvez Jr. called him up to discuss plans to set up modular hospitals. Galvez may have noted that northern Mindanao logged 1,000 new Covid-19 cases in a couple of days and it’s only a matter of time (before it worsens),” Moreno said in Monday noon’s City Hall press briefing.

Moreno said this two days before the city-owned JR Borja General Hospital is scheduled to open its Covid-19 wards on the third floor of its South Wing or Pimentel building today. As of last week, JRBGH accommodated 16 moderate Covid-19 patients on its third floor as construction crews worked around the clock to complete the wing in time for the hospital’s 53rd-anniversary celebration.

Despite being only a Level One hospital, Moreno said City Hall had to fast-track its upgrading of JRBGH to handle the growing number of mild to moderate Covid-19 patients that lined up its premises due to the Covid-19 surge.

Due to the refusal of the city’s private hospitals to accommodate more Covid-19 cases, JRBGH became the ‘hospital of last resort’ for Covid-19 patients unable to seek admission at Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC), the region’s Covid-19 referral hospital.

In building modular hospitals for Covid-19 cases, Moreno said he suggested to Hernandez that modular hospitals be built at the Center for Emerging-Reemerging Infectious Diseases facility in Barangay San Simon and at JRBGH.

“If these two aren’t enough, (budget availability permitting), the government can also add modular hospitals at the nearly completed Lumbia hospital or at Barangay Tibasak,” Moreno said.

Moreno said under this arrangement, the Department of Public Works and Highways can build the modular hospitals in two months or earlier while the Department of Health will supply the hospital equipment and medical personnel.

“I also talked to NMMC chief Dr. Jose Chan who welcomed the news. With the modular hospitals, we may have an additional 100 beds along with more medical staff,” Moreno said. (Stephen Capillas of City Information Office)