CITY Mayor Jane Yap thru the Office of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (CDRRM) distributed first-aid backpacks to the key personnel of the City DepEd, City Social Welfare and Social Development Office, day care teachers, and barangay captains. The bag contains essential items like alcohol, gloves, band-aid, thermometer, cotton, splint, gauze, forceps, and other paraphernalias, needed to appropriately respond to emergency situations.
CDRRM Head Gerard Lavadia said that emergency response is always a priority. City Mayor Jane Yap emphasized the importance of being ready, thus the first-aid backpacks are a major reinforcement to the city’s quest to be disaster-resilient.
In addition, the CDRRM acquired a vibraphone and a vibrascope. The new equipment is used for locating victims trapped or buried under collapsed structures and landslides. The vibraphone locates victims with the use of sound vibrations, while the vibrascope get visuals in dark and tight spaces for easy victim extrication.
Last year, a sea ambulance was acquired by the office. The sea ambulance is pegged at Php3 million equipped with an ambulance stretcher, automatic external defibrillator, portal suction machine, nebulizer, aneroid sphygmomanometer, stethoscope, oxygen cylinder and examining light, among other equipment. The ambulance measures 8.8 meters by 2.3 meters and is powered by a Suzuki DF115A outboard motor. The sea ambulance can quickly take patients who got ill on-board a sea vessel to the mainland as quickly as possible, medical emergencies at sea will be immediately remedied. This is indeed a significant reinforcement to the office’s mitigation and response unit.
The CDRRM which used to be a unit under the City Mayor’s Office was made into a department thru an ordinance sponsored by then city councilor Dulce Amelia Glovasa. (Jeanette Busano)
