THE Baguio City government has established the Baguio One Hospital Command Center (BOHCC), a central command unit to coordinate hospital referrals in the city with those in the region, as well as perform other logistical tasks in coordination with the region’s healthcare facilities.
City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO) Officer-in-Charge Antonette Anaban said that the BOHCC, a local counterpart of the Cordillera OHCC, itself an offshoot of the national system, serves as a healthcare referral network linked with hospitals, quarantine facilities, and healthcare logistics support under the Department of Health (DOH).
The BOHCC operates as a network combining the CDRRMO’s operation center, Baguio City Emergency Medical Services (BCEMS), operation centers of hospitals, and city health services office focal persons for epidemiology and surveillance, as well as temporary treatment and management facilities, barangay district health centers and the City Mayor’s Information Technology Division (MITD).
Its primary function is to efficiently sort out referral and coordination between the city’s hospitals, as well as to network with the Cordillera OHCC to ensure that patients are able to find healthcare as well as ensure that the hospitals and other healthcare services are not bogged down by duplicated functions and logistical issues.
“With the sustained high number of COVID-19 cases during the first quarter, the city experienced some gaps and lapses in the referral and coordination of COVID-19 cases to temporary treatment management facilities and hospitals,” Anaban said.
Anaban also said that certain ongoing issues include a lack of ambulances, as well as CDRRMO manpower, which leads to delays in transporting patients.. She also cited a lack of quarantine facilities and long patient turnovers in hospitals as reasons for the system being bogged down.
