With community transmission a large contributor, along with the country’s increased testing capacity, to the growing number of positive cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country, the Philippine Red Cross has volunteered to help the Department of Health (DOH) release positive test results to patients.
Senator Dick Gordon, PRC chairman and CEO, stressed that persons with positive test results should be immediately informed of their status because if they are belatedly informed, they can spread the virus in their community.
“The movement and transmittal of COVID-19 positive test results should be done faster.”
“There are over 15,700 positive confirmed cases since July 30 and one-third of these people have not been informed about their status as confirmed positives and has been dangerously increasing community transmission. The movement and transmittal of COVID-19 positive test results should be done faster in a careful and secure manner by the DOH in favor of the patient,” Gordon said in a letter to the DOH.
“We request the DOH to allow the PRC to send the positive results to patients through a team of volunteer doctors.”
“Given the urgency of the situation, we are now constrained to request the DOH to allow the PRC to send the positive results to patients through a team of volunteer doctors,” the veteran legislator added.
While the PRC sends negative results directly to those who undergo COVID testing at its molecular laboratories, positive results are sent to the DOH for individual release to the patients since these situations may produce perilous consequences and the DOH is in a better position and is better equipped to enforce government mandated health and safety protocols, which are embodied in the law and its implementing rules and regulations.
Reports show that acts of desperation of patients who tested positive for COVID-19 is rising at an alarming rate, with some resorting to suicide, evading quarantine and isolation protocols, or simply keeping the result from public knowledge, if not destroying it, to avoid the stigma attached to the disease.