ALABEL, Sarangani, Apr. 8- The pronouncement of President Rodrigo Duterte to extend the enhanced community quarantine over Luzon until April 30 and a similar declaration of the Region 12 Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) has prompted Sarangani Province to procure hospital supplies to cover requirements in the next six months.

Sarangani has one provincial hospital called Sarangani Health Care Facility located in the Capitol compound and five provincial-run hospitals in Glan, Malungon, Maasim, Kiamba, and in Maitum.

Dr. Arvin Alejandro, provincial health officer, said his office is particularly listing down drugs, medicines and laboratory reagents to be purchased on "a cash to cash basis" under the guidelines of the Bayanihan To Heal as One Act to expedite the procurement process.

But Dr. Alejandro emphasized the Provincial Health Office still has to secure quotations from three suppliers to support the procurement.

Alejandro said the PHO is "looking two steps ahead" in ensuring hospitals in Sarangani have enough supplies since suppliers from Manila had stopped deliveries because of the enhanced quarantine in Luzon.

He also said since Sarangani has imposed its enhanced community quarantine, suppliers are not coming to General Santos City and Sarangani "anymore for the meantime because they are afraid that from the moment they come here to deliver, they will be quarantined also."

Currently, all Sarangani mayors in border municipalities already imposed their lockdown as among the measures tightened to curb the entry of COVID-19 in Sarangani.

But in the travel restrictions that Governor Steve Chiongbian Solon issued under Executive Order No. 10 which placed Sarangani Province under enhanced community quarantine, it was pointed out that it was "not to deprive the community of essential needs such as food supplies, medicines, water and other essential goods."

There are identified suppliers in General Santos City for drugs and medicines but the reagents, according to Dr. Alejandro, are mostly coming from Davao and Manila.

Dr. Alejandro already instructed the chief of hospitals in the province to submit the list of their depleting supplies lest with the increasing cases in Luzon and Davao, he said, "we may be having difficulty in acquiring these if we will not act now."

In the meantime, he said, the PHO will submit the list to their identified supplier in Manila for the items that are only available there for the supplier to deliver all the items at once.

Dr. Alejandro is expecting to obtain the consolidated list of items today, April 8. He said the requirement for each hospital will be charged against their respective budget. (Beverly C. Paoyon/SARANGANI PROVINCIAL INFORMATION OFFICE)