By PNA
GENERAL SANTOS CITY — Government and private hospitals in Region 12 or Soccsksargen are ready for possible emergencies in the upcoming holiday revelries, especially injuries related to firecrackers and fireworks.
Jenny Ventura, Iwas Paputok program coordinator of the Department of Health-Region 12, said Tuesday all hospitals in the region have put in place the necessary systems and coordination in line with the Christmas and New Year celebrations.
She said they have trained personnel of over 100 hospitals in the region for the monitoring and proper handling of firecracker-related injuries.
All hospitals are required to report all injury cases referred to them related to fireworks and fireworks as well as other emergency cases, she said.
Ventura said these would be integrated into the Aksyon Paputok: Injury Reduction or APIR reporting system, which is a component of the agency’s Online National Electronic Injury Surveillance System.
She said they will monitor the reporting into the system of all local hospitals regarding the firecracker-related injuries.
“Only a few hospitals submitted reports in the past years so we’re currently addressing that,” she said in an interview with reporters here.
She said the DOH central office mainly based its previous records to seven sentinel sites and hospitals in the area.
Ventura acknowledged that the agency has not been able to record all firecracker-related injuries in the region these past years due to problems with the reporting of local hospitals.
The gap could be seen with the discrepancies in the final monitoring reports released by DOH-12 and the provincial government of South Cotabato in the previous holidays.
The agency reported a total of 56 firecracker-related injuries in the area, with South Cotabato province posting the most number of cases with 37.
However, a separate report released by the Integrated Provincial Health Office of South Cotabato cited the area’s total injury cases at 51.
“We will now strictly monitor the reporting of our hospitals to address that gap and also get a clearer picture as to the injuries,” she said.
DOH-12 will conduct its monitoring for fireworks and firecracker-related injuries from December 21 to January 5.
As in the past years, the agency will place anew all hospitals under the “code white” alert during the period.
