00:00 With everything that has transpired in this year's holding of the Traslacion, many of us are definitely most interested in what is happening on the ground.
00:09 The Philippine Red Cross or PRC along with the Manila DRMO, rescue teams and other volunteers continue to give medical attention to injured devotees.
00:19 We'll be getting more updates from Dr. Gwendolyn Pang, Secretary General of the Philippine Red Cross live via phone patch. Good evening Dr. Gwendolyn.
00:28 Hi, good evening and good evening to all the televiewers.
00:33 Thank you so much for joining us tonight for PTV News Tonight. I know the Philippine Red Cross has had a very hectic day so to speak.
00:40 But doctor, in your estimate, how many devotees were treated or given medical aid by the PRC so far?
00:48 So from our record, we have catered to 706 patients. Of the 706, 257 have requested us to check their vital signs or their health status.
01:05 And then 215, we treated them on minor cases or injuries like puncture, lacerations, some also felt they have dizziness, headache, difficulty breathing, hypertension and even small wounds.
01:23 And from the figure, six actually we can consider as major cases. Now of the 706, we transported 23 to our emergency field hospital.
01:38 So we have set up a 50 bed capacity field hospital and they were all taken care of very well and we were able to discharge them before the end of the procession.
01:49 However, the 10 other patients, we have transported them to different hospitals. The cases are like head trauma, we sent it to PGH and then we sent the patient to PGH.
02:03 We have complaints of severe chest pain where we sent it to also PGH. We have ankle lacerations, there was a bit of deformity also to PGH and then we also had a suspected acute appendicitis case that we brought to Tondo Medical Center.
02:24 Two couple, a couple I mean, two people, husband and wife, were brought to Jose Reyes Medical Center because they suffered from burns of their lower extremities on second degree burns.
02:41 These are vendors. And then we sent a pregnant woman who is actually due to give birth on the 12th of January. So she felt severe abdominal pain that we sent her to PGH.
02:57 We had a case of unconscious patient with seizure and hypertension. We sent the patient to Tondo Medical Center and then we also have one with extreme pain in the lower back extremities that we endorsed to Hospital of Manila.
03:15 So these were the cases that we handled for today. Relatively lower than the cases that we handled in previous years.
03:25 Yeah, Dr. Pang, this is great news actually because the whopping 1 million to 6.5 devotees on the ground, you know, it's part of their faith.
03:37 You know, it's part of our faith to walk barefoot and climb the Andes and hang on to that rope.
03:44 So they are always vulnerable to different kinds of injuries. How did the Philippine Red Cross plan the field hospital locations and how many PRC volunteers are there on the ground right now?
03:58 So today we have assigned 331 staff and volunteers composed of doctors, nurses, responders, rescuers, first aiders, psychosocial support workers, social workers, and some other medical team members.
04:16 From the figures that we received, we were told that we are expecting around 10 million devotees that will come today. So we kind of overprepared but we're happy to do that because it's better to be overprepared than, you know, you need it and you don't have it.
04:35 So from the day they started the Pahalik on Saturday, together with the volunteers today, we have deployed in total 1,000 volunteers and staff.
04:48 And we have set up 10 first aid stations along the route, you know, of the procession. And then we have 17 foot patrollers because our vehicles could not enter many of the areas.
05:03 So we made sure that we have foot patrollers who can go around and if in case of any incident, they can actually easily or quickly access the patient.
05:14 We also deployed 17 ambulances and 20 ambulances on standby in case needed. We also sent a rescue truck, a fire truck, a rescue boat.
05:25 We set up our own communication system. We have our satellite, the Wi-Fi, our satellite phone so that we can communicate easily. We use radio because they cut off the regular cellular phone line.
05:39 So those were the efforts that we have put together for the Saslacion 2024.
05:47 Thank you so much, Dr. Gwendolyn Pang, for your expediency and service, PRC Secretary General. Thank you so much and have a great night.
05:55 Thank you. And thanks to our volunteers. Thank you.
