Ang emergency department namo daghan pud makit-an nila nga mild, asymptomatic lage. Pero that’s why we prefer ang moderate to critical na among dawaton temporarily. In that way, ma-decongest pud mi ba.

DUE to the influx of Covid-19 patients that maximized its hospital beds, the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) will only be catering to moderate to critical Covid-19 cases to its emergency department.

In an advisory posted on its official Facebook page on Friday, September 17, 2021, SPMC advised those with mild cases to coordinate with the One Hospital Command Center for them to be accommodated.

“Non-Covid-19 cases will only be urgent and emergent cases,” SPMC said.

In addition, the hospital has a policy of “no coordinated referrals, no transfer.”

As of September 15, both SPMC’s 103-bed intensive care units (ICU), and 517 ward beds have been fully occupied.

From September 5 to 10, both beds have also been fully occupied.

The hospital, which is the main Covid-19 referral hospital in Davao Region, had expanded its bed capacity for Covid-19 patients for the past few days.

SPMC Chief Dr. Ricardo Audan said that they decided to limit the patients they cater to decongest the hospital.

“Ang emergency department namo daghan pud makit-an nila nga mild, asymptomatic lage. Pero that’s why we prefer ang moderate to critical na among dawaton temporarily. (Our emergency department had been catering to some mild and asymptomatic Covid-19 patients. This is why we prefer to cater to moderate to critical patients temporarily) In that way, ma-decongest pud mi ba (we can decongest our hospital),” Audan said in an interview with PTV Davao.

The hospital official also said they are already addressing in fixing its automated extraction machine of the SPMC Molecular Laboratory. The molecular lab can process around 3,000 swab samples from Davao City, and other parts of Davao Region.

Audan admitted that their machine experienced technical issues due to consistent use.

With this, the hospital can only manually process around 600 to 1,000 swab samples from SPMC and Davao City.

“Kasagaran man gud LGUs [local government units], diri man gud ginapadala sa amoa ilang samples. So nagpasensya sa mi for this. Pero gitawagan na namo ang supplier kagahapon [September 16] (Majority of our LGUs send their samples to us. We apologize for this. But we already called our supplier yesterday),” he said.

DR. RICARDO AUDAN SPMC Chief