BY ADRIAN P. NEMES III
Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital has the storage capacity for whatever coronavirus 2019 vaccine brand, Dr. Julius Drilon, chief of hospital assured yesterday.
Drilon said there are at least four COVID 19 vaccine brands available, each with different storage requirements.
He said that in case the local government units have no capacity to store the vaccines, CLMMRH is willing to keep them in its storage facility once they arrive in the province.
Drilon led the ceremonial inoculation of the nine department heads of the CLMMRH at the hospital’s Emerging Infectious Disease Facility yesterday which he said would, hopefully, encourage other staff members to have themselves vaccinated too.
Those who were vaccinated were Hospital chief administrator Antonio Manuel Monfort, chief nurse Marybeth Marcial, Internal Medicine chief Dr. Hary Carial, Family and Community Medicine chief Dr. Eirene Ayalin, Infectious disease specialist Dr. Carina Frayco and Pulmonologist Dr. Rhea Tabujara,
Dr. Franklin Delano Tumaneng, Dr. Joan Cerrada and John Michael Gabriel Zaragoza, operations chief.
Planning chief and Public Information officer of CLMMRH’s hospital emergency incident command system, respectively, were also inoculated.
Asked why he agreed to be vaccinated, Monfort said, this is to disprove of a lot of unconfirmed talks about the vaccine.
He said he did not have any doubts as to the brand to be used for inoculation because it should not matter.
CLMMRH has a total of 1,743 medical and non-medical staff members but only about 750- to 800 signified willingness to be vaccinated based on the survey conducted by the hospital management.
Drilon clarified that the staff members of the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital did not back out because the China-made Sinovac Coronavirus 2019 vaccines will be used for their inoculation because their principle is that they would take whatever vaccine is available.
He said that other staff members did not agree to be vaccinated because initially, they don’t have any idea what is the available vaccine brand, adding that when it was already known that it will be from Sinovac, others did not meet the age requirement as they are already more than 60-years-old.
Drilon noted that they hope to vaccinate at least 150 staff a day, adding that they intend to finish the inoculation within three to four days.*
