Mayor Isko Moreno, Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna and City Engineer Armand Andres at the soon to be finished COVID Hospital in Luneta. Photo by JERRY S. TAN
COVID-19 Field Hospital a gift to Manilans — Isko
THE Manila COVID-19 Field Hospital will be finished by Friday, ten days ahead of the self-imposed, 60-day deadline earlier announced by Mayor Isko Moreno, who said that the city’s seventh hospital may be operational in time for the celebration of the city’s 450th founding anniversary on June 24.
“This seventh hospital of ours will be our gift to the people of Manila. Our special thanks to City Engineer Armand Andres and the workers who expeditiously constructed the hospital round-the-clock,” Moreno said, as he also cited the efforts of City Architect Pepito Balmoris and City Electrician Randy Sadac.
Moreno said that the operations will begin pending the filling up of staff needed and dry-run operations.
It will be recalled that Moreno ordered the construction of the COVID Field Hospital in view of the reported anticipated surge in coronavirus cases in the coming months and in an effort to declog the six city-run hospitals of COVID cases so they could focus on those who are under critical or severe condition and other illnesses as well. The two-month self-imposed deadline is on June 20.
As planned, Moreno said that the field hospital will serve COVID-19 patients classified as mild and moderate cases, while those who are asymptomatic will be brought to the quarantine facilities to isolate them from their housemates and avoid transmission within the families. Moreno said the COVID hospital is the result of a brainstorming which he did with his doctor-Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna and health experts.
The seventh hospital sits on a 2.6-hectare lot at the Burnham Green area of Luneta Park, right across the Quirino Grandstand and near the site of the city government’s free drive-thru swabbing center.
It has 344 beds and has all the needed equipment and facilities required by COVID patients including oxygen tanks, ambulances and medical frontliners, in consideration of the fact that those with moderate symptoms still face the possibility of being elevated to severe cases.
The 24/7 construction began on April 20 for which Andres fielded hundreds of workers.
