By HENRY EMPEÑO | Subic Bay Freeport

THE Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) has offered the use of its community isolation facility at the Subic gymnasium here, as more workers at the Subic container terminal tested positive of the new coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in a mass testing held on Monday, Aug. 17, on orders of the Subic authority.

SBMA Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma said she sounded the offer in a meeting with officials of the Subic Bay International Terminal Corporation (SBITC) and representatives of the Department of Health (DOH) and World Health Organization to defuse the health crisis at the SBITC facility where 43 workers have tested positive of Covid-19 since Aug. 4.

The video conference on Wednesday, Aug. 19, discussed issues like the home quarantine of infected workers, and the tracing of their contacts in their respective communities, Eisma said.

“In this situation where we have a rising number of Covid-19 cases among workers in one area at the Freeport, it would be best to quarantine the infected workers in a proper isolation facility, rather than send them home to self-quarantine,” Eisma pointed out in a statement on Thursday.

“This is a situation that could blow bigger, but by isolating those who tested positive, we can help arrest local transmission. Otherwise, the contagion would spread and may get out of hand. We don’t want that to happen,” she added.

The infections at the SBITC container terminal broke out last week when a total of 15 cases were recorded after a worker manifested symptoms of the disease on July 30. The first patient, who is a resident of Olongapo City, had no history of travel to any Covid-19 high-risk area.

Last Monday, the SBITC had all its employees tested through reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) upon SBMA orders to mass-test workers, or face a total shutdown of operations.

SBITC said that aside from those previously tested as a result of contact-tracing, the required testing involved a total of 238 shift workers, port users, security personnel, canteen staff, and SBMA checkers.

By Thursday, as results of mass testing came in, 28 other Covid-19 cases turned out. The results for 26 other tests are still pending, SBITC said.

Eisma said that if more Covid-19 cases among SBITC workers turned up and local medical facilities get overwhelmed, the SBITC can use the SBMA’s community isolation facility at its own expense, as the DOH has not yet designated any level-2 hospital in the community to manage it as a Covid-19 facility.

“We have started preparing the Subic gym as early as April for just this kind of scenario—but always with the prayer that it won’t come to this, and here we are now. It’s sad, but at least there’s a place where the afflicted can go and get medical care without posing risk to their families,” she added.

Eisma said the Subic gym, which has just been refurbished last year as venue for the Southeast Asian Games, has been converted by the SBMA into a 32-bed care and isolation facility complete with work and rest quarters for medical care personnel.

The facility was certified by the DOH as a community isolation unit for Covdi-19 cases on July 29, 2020, under a certificate signed by Dr. Cesar Cassion, director of the DOH Central Luzon Center for Health Development.

Aside from the Subic gym, six-storey hotel has been turned by the SBMA into care and isolation facility with 81 rooms, but this is still awaiting DOH accreditation, Eisma added. ~

TOP PHOTO: SBMA chief Wilma T. Eisma briefs media on the capacity of the SBMA community isolation facility after its completion in April