Hyundai Asia Resources Inc. (HARI) has provided additional supply of personal protective equipment to UP-Philippine General Hospital (PGH). Last week, HARI initially delivered 300 of 2,500 PPEs for front liners at the UP-PGH.
The donation was channeled through #HyundaiSAGIP, the flagship disaster relief program of HARI’s corporate social responsibility arm, H.A.R.I. Foundation, Inc. (HFI).
PGH is HFI’s partner in the flagship Alagang Breastfriend free breast cancer screening and information dissemination campaign.
Mobility support
Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. (TMPC) continues to contribute to help communities move forward through mobility support and special assistance to its customers.
Toyota Financial Services Philippines extended the payment terms for their customers. Expiring insurance policies under Toyota Insure and warranty coverages for Toyota vehicles have been extended.
Toyota vehicles scheduled for periodic maintenance services are also given a 30-day grace period.
TMPC also lent out its company vehicles to doctors and nurses serving in different healthcare institutions.
Toyota Motor Philippines Foundation (TMPF) meanwhile has handed out donations for health care workers and families who need support. Some PPEs, such as isolation gowns, surgical gowns, and surgical gloves were donated to Santa Rosa Community hospital, while sacks of rice and grocery packages were distributed to hard to reach areas and certain communities including the Toyota Santa Rosa Gawad Kalinga Village which is home to more than 150 families.
For Metrobank Card Corp., all frontliners who are Toyota Mastercard credit card holders will be given Petron fuel rebates from April 15 to 30,2020.
Ayala donations fund COVID hospital
The Ayala Group of Companies said it has partnered with Qualimed to convert Qualimed Sta. Rosa, Laguna for a new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) referral hospital. Qualimed is a partner of Ayala Group’s Ayala Land Inc. in its venture into the health care business.
The project was made possible through contributions from various Ayala Group companies, including Ayala Corp., Ayala Foundation, Ayala Land, BPI Foundation, AC Energy, Manila Water, Globe, IMI, and AC Motors.
Qualimed Sta. Rosa, is one of the four general hospitals within the Qualimed Health Network, and is located at Nuvali, Ayala Land’s eco-city development. The hospital offers a wide range of comprehensive outpatient and inpatient health care services, and has already been seeing suspected and confirmed cases of COVID-19 over the past weeks.
The group said with the partnership, the hospital will expand its capabilities to manage more patients as a full-scale COVID-19 referral hospital by building a COVID-19 triage holding area adjacent to the Sta. Rosa facility; building a biosafety level 2 laboratory capable of COVID-19 testing; converting inpatient beds for exclusive use of COVID-19 patients; expanding the hospital’s current ICU-bed capacity, and forming a dedicated team of medical professionals, including volunteer clinical staff from the broader Qualimed, FamilyDOC and Healthway networks.
At present, Qualimed Sta. Rosa is already open to receiving COVID-19 referrals, and upgraded facilities will be opened in phases beginning May 1.
Disinfecting apparatus
The Villar Group has donated disinfecting apparatus to the Philippine General Hospital.
The Department of Health (DOH)-designated COVID-19 referral center, Philippine General Hospital (PGH) joins the Bataan General Hospital and the PICC Quarantine Facility, which the Villar Group converted, together with DPWH and EEI, among the list of facilities that received the equipment.
Nine other hospitals also received the disinfecting apparatus: RITM in Alabang, Las Piñas General Hospital, and Don Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital in Caloocan, Rizal Medical Center in Pasig, Quirino Medical Center, Philippine Heart Center and Lung Center of the Philippines in Quezon City, and San Lazaro Hospital and Santa Ana Hospital in Manila.
Free data
Teachers and students interested in advancing their knowledge while under enhanced community quarantine may now visit the Department of Education’s (DepEd) new online learning platform, DepEd Commons, without incurring data charges on their Globe or TM-powered smartphones.
DepEd Commons contains online review materials and Open Educational Resources (OER) authored by public school teachers who are subject matter experts. Teachers can retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute the content by blending it with a learning management system to deliver a distance learning modality.
By providing free access to DepEd Commons (https://commons.deped.gov.ph), Globe hopes to encourage educators and learners to take advantage of supplementary online instructional materials without worrying about data charges during class suspensions and similar circumstances.
The website also integrates the Globe eLibrary, an online platform which features age-appropriate and engaging e-books ranging from storybooks for children and young adults to textbooks on core subjects such as Math, Science, English, Filipino, Music, Arts, among others. Globe eLibrary also has a collection of eLearning videos, some of which were developed by teachers themselves, which introduce important concepts in English, Math, and Science, incorporating sights and sounds that are familiar to the students.
Pandemic training
The Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) together with the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies (Watson Institute, Brown University) and international relief organization Project HOPE recently held a COVID-19 Training of Trainers (TOT) Program for Philippine health workers.
Almost 90 doctors, nurses, and health professionals from public and private hospitals and organizations across the country took part in the four-day training.
Led by Brown University assistant professors of Emergency Medicine Dr. Alexis Kearney, Dr. Adam Levine, Dr. Adam Aluisio, and Dr. John Foggle, the live webinar covered topics such as infection prevention and control, contact tracing, and risk communication and public health messaging, which cover areas that are highly essential in helping the country lessen the prolonged negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
More quarantine facilities
Engineering and infrastructure group Megawide Construction Corp., said it has constructed two emergency quarantine facilities (EQF), with two more set for completion, as its staff has volunteered to build the facilities around Metro Manila.
Megawide volunteers, including engineers, electricians, plumbers, and carpenters, helped construct EQFs, designed by architect William Ti of WTA Architecture and Design Studio, at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) and the Fe Del Mundo Medical Center (FDMMC). Megawide is also building EQF units for Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital (DJNRMH) and Cardinal Santos Medical Center (CSMC).
The facilities will be used to accommodate persons under investigation (PUIs) who need to be quarantined but can no longer be admitted by hospitals.
Tan said his firm has made the design of the EQFs open source and available online. The EQFs are designed for patients and healthcare workers to have different entrances, with doctors having their own external testing box to check patients without having to go inside the quarantine area.
Megawide is also looking to build a similar facility in Camp Crame and in Medical City Pasig.
Megawide through Megawide Foundation has also donated medical supplies to COVID-exclusive facilities and hospitals in its host communities.
Recipients included the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), Lung Center of the Philippines, Philippine General Hospital (PGH), Jose Rodriguez Memorial Hospital, Taytay Emergency Center, San Juan Medical Center, and San Juan de Dios Hospital, and the Quezon City government.
Megawide Foundation is set distribute more donations, including sanitation tents, to additional facilities in the coming days.
MetroTent to house TMC employees
The Lopez Group and The Medical City (TMC) have completed yesterday the retrofitting of the MetroTent Convention Center in Pasig City into a temporary home for TMC employees.
MetroTent owner Luis “Chavit” Singson partnered with Lopez company First Philippine Holdings Corp. (FPH) with help from FPH’s First Balfour for the construction of a 120-bed temporary shelter for employees of TMC.
First Balfour provided mattresses, pillows and blankets spread in rows over the cavernous floor of MetroTent for TMC male employees. Female employees can stay in individual tents set up by First Balfour also within MetroTent.
OMF does its share
One Meralco Foundation (OMF), the Manila Electric Company’s social development arm, are helping thousands of homeless families and frontline medical personnel.
In partnership with TV5’s Alagang Kapatid Foundation (AKFI), Maynilad, and the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), OMF distributed food packs on March 24, benefiting 200 families living on Kalayaan and E. Rodriguez avenues in Quezon City and 500 marginalized families in Barangay Buting, Pasig City.
Hundreds of families in received out care packages in Tondo; Bacoor, Cavite; Barangay Talon Cuatro, Las Pinas City; Pateros City; Brgy. Bukana, Ternate, Cavite; Malabon City; Caloocan City; Navotas City; Antipolo City, Rizal; Marikina City; Mandaluyong City; and San Juan City.
Also launched was an internal online campaign within the Meralco organization to provide marginalized families in Metro Manila with grocery gift certificates — a project in collaboration with Caritas Manila that raised more than P1.5 million and benefited at least 1,500 families.
OMF also responded to the needs of private and government-owned referral hospitals for personal protective equipment (PPEs) and basic safety gear for health care personnel. Beneficiaries include Rizal Medical Center, Philippine Heart Center, Philippine General Hospital (PGH), Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital and Sanitarium (Tala Sanitarium).
OMF also donated PPEs to the Lung Center of the Philippines, Baguio General Hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Sta. Mesa Manila, the main COVID-19 referral hospital of the Metro Pacific Hospitals.
Frontliners of various local governments in Meralco franchise areas, such as those in Marikina City, Batangas City, and San Pascual, Batangas also received donations.
Meralco, through OMF, donated 20 desktop computers to the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) at UP Diliman as their scientists are set to start sequencing samples from COVID-19 patients.
eSakay, a Meralco subsidiary, and OMF has teamed up with the local government unit of Pasig to shuttle health workers and employees of essential businesses to work.
