7th Newborn Screening Center Opens in Mandaue City
DOH’s Eversley Childs Sanitarium and General Hospital (ECSGH) in Jagobiao, Mandaue City, Cebu, hosts the country’s 7th Newborn Screening Center (NSC), which starts its operations on February 10, 2020.
Built in 1982, ECSGH is a 500-bed government-mandated hospital that originally operated exclusively as a leprosarium. With the decline of leprosy in 1981, the hospital expands its role and offered additional non-leprosy services like surgery, family medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology. It becomes a referral center for the management of complications, patient and family counseling and community education in the area.
Now with its new role as host of the 7th 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-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.
Downloads for NSC-Central Visayas
Contact NSC-CV
For Region 7
- EVERSLEY CHILDS SANITARIUM AND GENERAL HOSPITAL (Outpatient Department Basement) Northroad, Jagobiao, Mandaue City, Cebu 6014
- Email: [email protected]
- Trunk line: (032)-2723036
