Davao City: The Davao City government will be making the Los Amigos Health Center available as a test center for the coronavirus disease 2019, as part of efforts to increase the city’s testing capacity.
Currently, Covid-19 testing is only being done at the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC), which has also been designated as the treatment facility in the Davao region. The testing capacity of SPMC is 100-120 per day.
Davao City Mayor Inday Sara Duterte said that the center has gone through inspection last week and could start testing Covid-19 samples in a month.
“Gahapon, nag buhat mi og timeline and based ato kinahanglan pa og one month bago mag operate ang Los Amigos center,” she said.
The Los Amigos Health Center is one of the four facilities that the city government has eyed for conversion into a Covid-19 test center.
The others are the Davao Doctor’s Hospital, the Brokenshire Hospital, and a privately owned laboratory.
As the city tries to increase its testing capacity, 11 isolation facilities are also now ready to host patients required to be quarantined.
“Nag tanggal ta og tulo ka facility kay they are being used for Covid-19 work pero dili for isolation purposes,” she said.
Overall, the city now has 503 beds ready for Covid-19 patients.
The facilities are the Davao City Rehabilitation Center, La Vida Inn, the Alternative Learning System building, Queensland Hotel, Boy Scouts of the Philippines, EMCOR, the Mental Wellness facility, RMC Petro Gazz Arena, UP Mindanao Faculty building, the UP Mindanao Sports Complex, and the Rizal Memorial Colleges.
As of May 11, the city has a total of 161 positive cases with 81 recoveries. There are still 57 active cases in the city and 22 deaths had been reported since the outbreak started. CIO