The local government of Baguio is asking the Department of Health (DOH), National Inter-Agency Task Force (NIATF) and other concerned agencies to conduct an investigation on the thousands of Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test kits donated to the City. The items which were supposed to be used by a private diagnostic center have mostly expired when received by the local leaders.
“Bakit ganoon? Naghahanap tayo ng test kits. Bakit biglang nag-donate ang RITM ng napakarami? And I surmise na hindi lang hundreds of thousands iyan. Most probably, mas mataas pa (Why is that so? We have been looking for test kits. Why did the RITM suddenly donate so many? And I surmise that these are not just in the hundreds of thousands. Most probably, it is even higher,” Mayor Benjamin Magalong lamented.
50,000 RT-PCR test kits were received by the said diagnostic center from the Department of Health-Research Institute for Tropical Medicine last October 16. Only 1000 were used since the rest of the bulk expired on October 10 and 15, and November 5.
To rush the use of the test kits before the expiry date, 24,000 sets were given to the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center Laboratory but most of the stocks were no longer fit for use due to expiration.
The City of Baguio is not the only one that got such RT-PCR test kits. LGUs and private laboratories are also said to have received them.
“Doon kami nagtataka (we have been wondering) and we’re raising hell, only to find out that the other local government units also have received, private hospitals and private laboratories have received this kind of test kits. So, ni-raise natin yan, kinomplain natin ‘yan, IATF, DOH. Ni-raise na rin natin ‘yan sa DOH (So we raised this, we have complained about it with the IATF, DOH. We raised that with the DOH),” Mayor Benjamin Magalong divulged.
The DOH and other concerned agencies are expected to seriously look into the issue so that the incident will not happen again. – Report by Florence Paytocan
