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| DOH’s Eversley Childs Sanitarium and General Hospital (ECSGH) in Jagobiao, Mandaue City, Cebu, hosts the country’s 7th Newborn Screening Center (NSC), which started its operations on February 10, 2020. |
MANDAUE CITY - Built in 1982, Eversley Childs Sanitarium and General Hospital (ECSGH) in Jagobiao, Mandaue City, Cebu is a 500-bed government-mandated hospital that originally operated exclusively as a leprosarium. With the decline of leprosy in 1981, the hospital expanded its role and offered additional non-leprosy services like surgery, family medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology. It also became a referral center for the management of complications, patient and family counseling and community education in the area. Recently, ECSGH opened the country’s 7th Newborn Screening Center (NSC), which started its operations on February 10, 2020.
Now with its new role as host of the 7th Newborn Screening Center (NSC), ECSGH joins the six other hosts and NSCs in providing accessible expanded newborn screening tests to the public. It will provide the required laboratory tests and recall/follow-up programs for newborns with heritable conditions included in the newborn screening panel as stated Republic Act 9288 or the Newborn Screening Act of 2004.
Finally, as the newest newborn screening center, NSC-Central Visayas (NSC-CV) will receive blood samples for expanded newborn screening from the 426 health facilities from provinces of Cebu, Bohol, Negros Oriental, and Siquijor. More than 110,000 newborns annually from the region are expected to be tested in expanded newborn screening by NSC-CV.
The NSC-CV setup was initiated in June 2019 by the then Chief of Hospital Dr. Lope Carabaña. It is now headed by its OIC - Medical Center Chief Dr. Pythagoras Zerna. The center is housed at the outpatient building of ECSGH and are manned by 15 personnel consisting of analysts, managers, follow-up nurses, administrative staff, and its unit head, Dr. Liwayway Reyes.#
MEDIA RELEASE
Newborn Screening Reference Center @newbornscreenph
National Institutes of Health - UP Manila
https://newbornscreening.ph
info@newbornscreening.ph
