Hundreds of healthcare workers in Eastern Visayas have been given temporary free accommodation by the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The OCD in Region 8 said it will continue to provide assistance to healthcare workers as they take care of COVID-19 patients and assist locally stranded individuals.
“All government nurses natin dito assigned in EVRMC [Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center] and other major hospitals natin attending to COVID, ini-house po natin,” OCD 8 Reg. Dir. Lord Byron Torrecarion said.
Junar Lustre, a nurse from the Department of Health (DOH) in Borongan, said he had to look for a separate space during the onset of the pandemic for his family’s protection.
“There were even instances that I literally experienced being discriminated against when one of the landlords I spoke with rejected me instantly, after knowing that I was a frontliner,” Lustre.
“This program will definitely lighten and ease the burden, emotionally, as well as financially for us frontliners,” Lustre added.
Dr. James Lloyd Ostrea, an emergency medicine practitioner at the EVRMC, welcomed the initiative, saying that it helps “healthcare workers to have a peace of mind and not worry about infecting other people.” – Report from John Aroa-PTV Cebu/AG-rir
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