THE Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has stepped up to the challenges posed by COVID-19 by rapidly putting up infrastructure to support the healthcare system for the welfare of the Filipino people.

DPWH Secretary and Chief Isolation Czar Mark A. Villar disclosed that as of end-April 2021, the DPWH has built 662 units of various health facilities with 24,513-bed capacity nationwide to support countrywide healthcare demand.

Villar said that capacity expansion is ongoing at the Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP) compound in Quezon Avenue, Quezon City to cope with the increase in number of patients brought by the surge of people infected with the coronavirus.

Villar, together with the DPWH Task Force for Augmentation of Local/Health Facility headed by Undersecretary Emil K. Sadain, inspected Friday the newly started modular hospital project at LCP which is in addition to the intensive care unit (ICU)-type facility with 16-bed capacity turned over last November 2020.

Villar said Sadain reported that the ongoing project covers the construction of four typical design with 88 beds and one ICU-type modular hospital with 22 beds, or a total of 110-bed capacity.

The project is extremely significant since the LCP received the most number of patients with respiratory conditions and these five cluster units of off-site hospital will augment the existing treatment facility for moderate, severe and critical COVID-19 patients.

Also present during the inspection are members of the DPWH Task Force Technical Working Group, namely Director Aristarco Doroy and Assistant Director Edgardo Garces of the Bureau of Construction which supervises and implements the project, and Alejandro H. Tengco of Nationstar Development Corporation.

The DPWH has also completed 10 modular hospital projects with total capacity of 252 beds for COVID-19 treatment and 60 units of off-site dormitories as temporary shelter of about 1,456 healthcare workers.

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Lee Ann P. Ducusin