00:00By midnight on New Year's Day, patients will check in as victims of the New Year's Eve and Day Revelry.
00:06Injuries from close-to-body blasts, lacerated limbs or extremities, missing digits, among whom sadly are passive users,
00:13and will be checking in at the East Avenue Medical Center.
00:16BTV's Rod Laguzet has more.
00:21East Avenue Medical Center is ready for the New Year's Day Revelry.
00:24For this year, the new building of the hospital is designated as the area for receiving fireworks-related injuries.
00:31According to Dr. John Polner, spokesperson of East Avenue Medical Center, the medical tools and supplies are all prepped and set.
00:38When a patient arrives here, they will first go to our triage area.
00:43In the triage area, a doctor is assigned to look at the cases of patients,
00:50be it related to fireworks-related injuries or surgical or medical conditions.
00:56Then, that doctor will determine where the patients will go.
01:01The hospital is on code-wide alert, which means personnel are on standby around the area.
01:06And if additional manpower is needed, they can easily get to the hospital.
01:10At the East Avenue Medical Center, as of 6 a.m. of December 30, there are 12 recorded fireworks-related injuries.
01:17Among the cases are injuries from BOGA, whistle-bound, five-star, and unidentified firecrackers.
01:23According to NARE, most of the victims are passive users, meaning they weren't directly playing with and setting off the fireworks.
01:29Two of them are currently admitted at East Avenue Medical Center, while the remaining 10 have already been sent home.
01:35For the whole monitoring period of fireworks last year, East Avenue Medical Center has a total of 24 cases.
01:44Now, as of December 30, we have 12 cases.
01:51We don't want this to happen, but for the worst-case scenario, we are anticipating more patients as the new year approaches.
02:01Meanwhile, according to data from the Department of Health, as of 6 a.m. on December 30, there have been 163 reported fireworks-related injuries.
02:09From this figure, 21 is the new cases today.
02:12This is 44% higher compared to the same day last year.
02:16The hospital is also ready to respond to any cases of stray bullets.
02:20Aside from fireworks-related injuries, the Department of Health is also monitoring cases of stroke, heart attack, asthma, food-related illnesses, and alcohol-related trauma.
02:30From PTV Manila, Rod Laguced, Balitang Pampansa.
