By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

A COVID-positive patient was declared dead-on-the-spot after he allegedly jumped off the 5th floor, West Tower building at the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH) in Bacolod City yesterday afternoon.

Police have requested not to identify the victim, although they confirmed he is 60 years old and a resident of the city’s Barangay Estefania.

Police Captain Paul Vincent Pendon, Police Station 2 commander, said an hour prior to the victim jumping off the hospital’s COVID-19 ward, the victim was visited by the hospital nurse to give him his medication.

The victim then asked the nurse if he could go home, but the nurse replied back that he couldn’t because he is still ill with COVID-19.

At around 12:00 p.m., a security guard heard a loud bang at the roof of the hospital’s water treatment facility.

The guard investigated where the loud bang originated and discovered the victim’s remains.

Police are regarding the incident as a suicide instead of an escape attempt as the nurses who are treating the patient noted that he is also suffering from depression./DGB, WDJ