4 Baguio hotels used by PUIs, health workers

By Dexter A. See and Pigeon Lobien

BAGUIO CITY – Owners of four hotels in the city allowed the use of their hotel rooms as containment area for persons under investigation (PUIs) and as a temporary lodging area for health workers of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) during the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine until April 15, 2020.

The management of Lindi Hotel along Legarda Road allowed the city government and the health department to use its existing 28 rooms as the city’s centralized containment area for moderate risk PUIs who have been advised to go on 14-day quarantine while the management of the Star Wood Hotel allowed the free use of its hotel rooms as temporary lodging and accommodation area for health workers of the BGHMC who are now working round the clock in handling the increasing number of PUIs and presumptive Corona virus Disease (COVID) 2019 cases in the city.

The management of 3BU Hostel Baguio along Bonifacio and Gov. Pack road and Beth and Bernie Pagar building offered their establishments to be temporarily used by health workers having difficulty of travelling from their places to their work so that they will not be exhausted.

Initially, two PUIs were accommodated in the established centralized containment area while the city government and the City Health Services Office are putting the final touches in providing the additional monitoring devices to convert the facility into a semi-hospital set up.

On the other hand, the BGHMC management is currently working out the prioritization of health workers who will use the hotel rooms of the Star Wood Hotel as their temporary lodging and accommodation area while rendering the required services to the hospital during this period of enhanced community quarantine when transportation from their residences to the hospital is not available.

Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong expressed the city government’s gratitude to the management of Lindi hotel for allowing its hotel rooms to be used by the city as its centralized containment area for moderate risk PUIs considering the expected influx of patients following the designation of BGHMC as a sub-national testing center for the initial screening of the illness and to the other hotels for providing free accommodations to health workers who are sacrificing their lives to care for the affected patients.

The city chief executive stated the offer of the Lindi hotel management for the use of their hotel rooms for free greatly contributes to the efforts of the city government to provide added confinement areas aside from the existing hospital rooms in both the private and public hospitals in the city.

Earlier, BGHMC announced it has some 19 available isolation rooms to accommodate high-risk PUIs while awaiting their confirmatory test results from the Manila-based Research for Tropical Medicine (RITM).

BGHMC medical center chief Dr. Ricardo Ruñez also expressed the management’s sincerest gratitude to the owners of Star Wood hotel for allowing their hotel rooms to be used for free as lodging and accommodation for their health workers allowing them to pace their workers for their round-the-clock duty in the coming weeks for PUIs and presumptive COVID cases in the city. - Dexter A. See

Owners of the Lindi Hotel, a two-story building on Legarda Road, asked not to be named, Magalong said.

Magalong appealed to the owners of the former Santo Nino Hospital on P. Burgos Road, which has been vacant after its closure some five years ago, to lend the area as a confinement center which the owners granted but residents are opposing use of the facility as Covid-19 center.

It is owned by the Fernandez family, who owns the Baguio Central University and honored early this year with a street named after the school’s founder Margarita Fernandez.

Magalong said the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) might not be lifted any time soon, with the way things are going.

“I am not that all optimistic that this will not be over in one month, not optimistic with two, three could be probable,” Magalong said.

During the special city council meeting on Tuesday, the Local Finance Committee said the money could be augmented coming from the city’s PHP2.2-billion annual budget, but this needs legislation, “especially if the ECQ will be extended beyond the one month.”

On the same day, a total of PHP2.5 million was released from the city’s PHP29 million quick response fund (QRF) which was distributed to the 128 barangay heads as an initial salvo for the food distribution for the “poorest of the poor.”

Another PHP101 million was accessed by the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (CDRRMC) to help Baguio residents as a 24-hour curfew had been imposed to stop social contact.

Magalong said the second week will be even more crucial as food will be more difficult to get.

“Baka gutom na tao by that time (People could go hungry by that time),” he said.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the local government has already distributed food packs with PHP450 worth of food consisting of milk, rice, noodles, and canned goods.

“That is good only for three days for a family of five,” Magalong said even as the city’s quick response fund and that of the barangay will not be enough to buy food for the more than 350,000 residents.

“Soon, we need to augment that,” said Magalong referring to the QRF.

Magalong said the city needs to stock more on alcohol, face masks and the like in the next days.

For alcohol, stocks come regularly but the first to run low due to high demand, the city has ordered in large volumes.

The city is also set to get 500,000 face masks while a disinfection tent will soon be arriving to be used by health workers, for them to be safer from getting infected.

Magalong said there will be more Covid-19 test kits so that there will be “mass testing (even) if we buy.”

To date, there are only 100 test kits which are not used exclusively by residents but even from other provinces with the Baguio General Hospital as a secondary national testing center of the Department of Health.

Magalong is also awaiting the four packs of test kits from the SM Foundation. Each pack contains 250 test kits or a total of 1,000.

Magalong said they are also awaiting a CT scan like apparatus from Huawei that has an artificial intelligence analyzer for the lungs.

As for food supply, Magalong has already asked the city’s big supermarkets to have rolling stores that will cater to the food needs of the 128 barangays covered by 12 districts.

Each district, consisting of five to eight barangays, will have a rolling store. – With PNA reports