BY ANALOU DE VERA
Department of Health (DoH) Secretary Francisco Duque III said that he would present the appeal of the medical community to revert the National Capital Region (NCR) to the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).
“Fellow health workers, please know that as the Secretary of Health, I hear your pleas — and I will present these to the IATF. We have noted in particular your call for a time-out for the NCR,” said Duque.
“We will bring it to the full attention of the IATF and present to them more comprehensive strategies to protect our ranks,” he added.
Duque assured the healthcare workers that he understands their concerns, saying that the national government will “provide comprehensive support.”
“We will revisit and include the inputs we have gathered in our overall gameplan. The DoH will develop this strategy in coordination with our government and non-government counterparts in the next seven days,” he said.
“We commit to do more to ‘care for our carers’ with detailed plans for support — from easier actions such as facilitating lodging, transportation, PPE (personal protective equipment), and food — to pushing for more systematic reforms on compensation and benefits, including necessary network-based changes to healthcare practice,” he added.
President Duterte had earlier ordered the IATF to immediately act on the concerns of the healthcare workers, said presidential spokesman Harry Roque. (Analou de Vera)
