The Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) is ready for COVID-19 patients, but nearby provinces are not. It has the best capability to treat diseases in the Cordillera including Region 1 (Ilocos provinces including La Union and Pangasinan) and Region 2 (Cagayan Valley). As such, it can be readily overwhelmed if all serious cases from these regions will be brought there.
For less serious cases, Mountain Province should be capable enough with the Luis Hora Regional Hospital in Bauko which, with the improvement of the Cervantes road, also caters to patients from nearby Ilocos towns like Tagudin, Candon, etc.
Kalinga should not be so isolated because any deficiency of whatever medical facilities it has can be augmented by those in nearby Tuguegarao, Cagayan. With the cemented road, one can make it from Tabuk City, Kalinga to Tuguegarao in 45 minutes.
Ifugaos could rush their patients to Luis Hora Regional Hospital also or to the hospitals in Lamut, Ifugao or nearby Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. The present situation though brings to light the Ifugao provincial hospital whose construction had been ongoing for many years but never got finished due to corruption, as what else could have caused its substandard implementation? If it were a bridge it could have been dubbed as one of the longest bridges. A year or two ago, it was hotly debated if whatever was finished in the infrastructure should be demolished or just remedied as some portions were considered substandard. Now the project will be continued after some band-aid remedies were introduced. That construction will forever be a scar to the reputation of Ifugao politicians and, perhaps, the Ifugao people as they were the ones who voted their leaders into office who could not even see to it that the Ifugaos will have a competent and modern-enough hospital to take care of their health needs.
Through the efforts of Mayor Benjamin Magalong, Baguio City has been receiving donations of health care materials for COVID-19 from all over like test kits, face masks, etc. Through his representations, other donations have been coming in and several hotel owners have made known their willingness for their facilities to be used for the war against COVID-19. One is already being used as a containment facility. A hospital which has long been mothballed is also being prepared specifically for COVID-19 patients. It should be ready in a day or two after the specifications of doctors are satisfied. Through the mayor’s initiative also, the city is now making sanitation tents which were conceptualized and developed by UP professionals.
So it is that Baguio might be the most prepared in Northern Luzon in the war against the disease. But why only Baguio? How about far-flung areas like the Ilocos provinces and the Cagayan Valley? This COVID-19 situation should impress on the national government the need for more efforts to develop and modernize health care facilities in outlying regions. Or were the politicians in these areas so corrupt that they just pocketed funds intended for the improvement or putting up of modern health care facilities?
And, did it have to take to take COVID-19 for us to realize the glaring health care needs of our people?**