The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the agency largely involved in the construction of temporary treatment and monitoring facilities nationwide, will put-up more off-site hospitals to cater the increasing number of people suffering from virus infection.
DPWH Secretary and Chief Isolation Czar Mark A. Villar said that capacity expansion of major hospitals are on-going using pre-fabricated components to speed up the construction process.
Secretary Villar announced that construction works of additional pop-up structures has started at the Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP), Quezon City following a meeting of DPWH Task Force for Augmentation of Local/National Health Facilities headed by Undersecretary Emil K. Sadain and LCP Executive Director Dr. Vincent M. Balanag Jr.
In his report to Secretary Villar, Undersecretary Sadain said that ground works for additional five (5) cluster units of off-site hospital facility with 110 beds for moderate, severe and critical patients has commence on Saturday, April 17, 2021 with the conduct of construction staking or layout survey of build site.
As an infrastructure support to LCP, DPWH had ealier built modular facilities composed of eight (8) fully airconditioned rooms with two (2) hospital beds per room to accommodate 16 moderate, severe and critical cases, and 16 rooms with double-decker bed as temporary shelter of health professionals taking care of patients.
With Secretary Villar’s instruction to further coordinate with DOH and the management of public hospitals in Metro Manila for the construction of additional off-site facilities on vacant space, Undersecretary Sadain held a meeting with Dr. Noel V. Reyes, Medical Center Chief of the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH), and discussed preparatory plan and proposed concept design for the construction of a Mega Modular Off-Site Hospital at NCMH compound in Mandaluyong City.
About 11 cluster units of makeshift hospital with 242 bed capacity dedicated to the treatment of Covid-19 patients can be put up by DPWH and to be managed by NCMH and DOH.
DPWH is also proposing to construct three (3) cluster units of off-site dormitories with 96 beds as temporary shelter of medical professionals who will provide health care services at NCMH Mega Modular Off-Site Hospital.