According to Chen, et al.

(2020) in their article titled, “Nursing Perspectives on the Impacts

of COVID-19”, infection prevention and control in primary, acute care, and community
settings present healthcare and nursing professionals with huge challenges. This appears
to be true in the Philippines, as the cases per day that have been tallied by the DOH in
this country still reach at approximately 2000 persons per day (see picture below for
reference), totaling to 344,713 COVID-19 cases as of October, 2020. What do you think
the Department of Health should do to increase the awareness of the community about
infection prevention and control practices, ensure the observance of such practices, and, in
turn, mitigate the spread of this disease across the country? How can the healthcare
service delivery in the country be better mobilized to materialize this plan? Discuss. You
can compare and contrast what measures are being done now and what measures can still
be done to improve how the country manages the spread of disease. You can situate your
answer in the context of the community where you currently live as well. The quality of
your answer will be the primary basis of your grade for this activity. You may use
additional pages if necessary.

Reflection

The healthcare force all around the world is currently facing a difficult crisis that
looks like it would last a long time. The healthcare workers are doing their best in
order to care for the COVID patients, but the number of these patients keep on
increasing at large amounts per day. Here in the Philippines, the nurses are always
being taken for granted. Due to this, nurses quit their jobs left and right. Because
the nurses are receiving little to no benefits, the risk of being infected by COVID is a
great threat to them. The Philippines is in great need of nurses to work in hospitals
to counter COVID patients. The Department of Health is using all the resources that
they have, but, clearly, it is still not enough. They have already taken strategies and
procedures that would help in mitigating the spread of the disease, but the virus
seems to keep on spreading more and more.

Nurses are really important in this time that we live in and the Philippines are
still treating them like maids and mere ‘helpers’. Senator Cynthia Villar, for example,
stated that nurses don’t need to finish BSN because nurses are only being used as
caregivers for the elderly in other countries and therefore, don’t need to be
competent. This is an example of nurses being treated like nothing. What the
government should do is to provide greater benefits to the nurses working like
increasing their salary, medical compensations, and other benefits. By doing this, the
number of nurses that would apply to hospitals will definitely increase. The healthcare
force will be much stronger and COVID patients can be treated much more easily and
carefully. Nurses can also help spread awareness to people in their respective
communities and teach them proper infection prevention control.

Clearly, the interventions done by DOH is not enough and needs to have
proper revisions. When COVID started here in our community, the information of
infection prevention can only be accessed via the internet. DOH also made use of
commercials to spread awareness. But the information they spread out can only be
reached by people with internet or television. Remote and isolated communities have
little to no information being spread out to them. I would suggest for DOH to have a
proper orientation of disease prevention and control practices. I know that mass
gatherings are not allowed but there are still ways in doing an orientation without
gathering a lot of people such as orientation done a number of times with families
that are scheduled to come. DOH can also make use of newspapers and leaflets to
spread the information via paper since not a lot of people have access to digital
information.

Davao City also have a strict mask wearing rule, but to what I observed,
majority of people do not know how to properly dispose of their disposable masks or
what the proper mask to use when going out. A lot of people are using any cloth
just to cover their nose and mouth to avoid getting caught by the police and people
even reuse the cloth for a week or so. The masses are not informed of the proper
PPE guidelines and is more scared of the law than the risk of being infected by the
virus. In the mind of the people, as long as your nose and mouth are covered, then
you are safe from the law and the virus, but that is not true at all. DOH should
properly inform the masses about the proper PPE guidelines and what masks are okay
to use.

There are also people that do not have the funds to purchase masks or to
have the proper antiseptics to protect them from the virus. This is one of the reasons
why people reuse the masks or cloths that they are using. If possible, the
government should be the one to provide for the masks and disinfectants for people
that does not have the money to buy anything.

The virus is still spreading fast and the number of deaths is increasing. Thus,
something is clearly missing in the government’s current strategies. The actions and
interventions done is still not enough to reach the attention of the masses. The DOH
needs to find the root cause of the problem and act accordingly to prevent more
casualties from happening.