• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The Provincial Health Office is deploying additional health care personnel at evacuation centers in La Castellana, Negros Occidental, following the deaths of two infants over the past two months.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Girlie Pinongan disclosed that personnel of PHO, Municipal Health Office, and the Department of Health Center for Health and Development – Negros Island Region will have respective schedules to ensure round the clock monitoring of the health of evacuees.
A 9-month-old baby at the evacuation center in La Castellana, Negros Occidental, was admitted at a nearby government hospital and died on January 25, bringing to two the number of fatalities among residents affected by last month’s eruption of Kanlaon volcano.
On December 9 last year, a nine-month-old male infant at the evacuation center, a resident of Barangay Masulog, La Castellana, also succumbed to cardiopulmonary arrest due to acute gastroenteritis with severe dehydration.
Pinongan admitted that some evacuation centers are congested, which may trigger the spread of infectious diseases.
The augmentation of health personnel in the evacuation centers, according to Pinongan, is also aimed at addressing with immediate solutions the health needs of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
At present, DOH-CHD-NIR has deployed a total of 140 doctors, nurses, medical and technical staff at 18 evacuation centers in La Castellana, cities of Bago, La Carlota, and San Carlos in Negros Occidental, and Canlaon City in Negros Oriental.
As of January 29, the top leading causes of consultations among IDPs were acute respiratory infection – 29, hypertension – 12, and three for acute watery diarrhea, DOH reports said.*