METRO Pacific Hospitals Holdings Inc. (MPHHI), one of the member companies of listed Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), is ramping up its efforts to help fight the new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, by increasing its laboratory testing capacity and by adopting new strategies to address the “new normal”, such as tele-health services.
In a virtual press briefing last week, MPIC chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan pushed MPHHI to “wade into this testing effort” for COVID-19 nationwide.
“I feel hospital laboratories are the key in this fight against COVID-19, and what MPHHI is doing right now is on the right track–utilizing its advantage as the top tier nationwide hospital network to back up the Philippine testing effort by helping set up these facilities, and manning them as quickly as possible,” Pangilinan said.
Augusto Palisoc Jr. , MPHHI president and chief executive officer, said the group is gearing up for any possible “second surge” of COVID-19 cases once the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) is lifted. These include reconfiguring its business, adopting new technologies, and continuing to develop its laboratory capacity.
Palisoc said MPHHI’s 16-hospital network is steadily increasing its number of COVID-19 designated beds, which is now only at about 36 percent utilization. “We still have a lot of capacity to be able to help,” he added.
Despite the expected surge in demand for health care services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Palisoc acknowledged that maintaining MPHHI’s profitability has been a challenge in the last two months.
During the briefing, Palisoc mentioned the creation of a crisis team to coordinate its activities to cope with the rising number COVID- 19 related cases.MPHHI appointed Pilar Nenuca Almira as crisis team leader and designated Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital as the group’s COVID referral facility.
Palisoc added that the rest of the 15 hospitals nationwide have been tasked to review their respective spaces, personnel complement and technical resources, with a view to converting at least 20 percent of their existing capacity into isolation rooms for COVID-related patients, or about more than 700 beds.
Should the pandemic rise in intensity in the coming weeks, MPHHI could also consider supplemental tents, with beds and requisite equipment, for non-critical COVID cases in selected hospital grounds, as an extraordinary measure.
