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 Villar said that capacity expansion of major hospitals are ongoing using prefabricated components to speed up the construction process.
“Construction works of additional pop-up structures have started at the Lung Center of the Philippines.”
Villar announced that construction works of additional pop-up structures have 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 Sadain and LCP Executive Director Dr. Vincent Balanag Jr.
In his report to the public works chief, Sadain said that groundworks for additional five cluster units of off-site hospital facility with 110 beds for moderate, severe, and critical patients began April 17 with the conduct of construction staking or layout survey of the build site.
As infrastructure support to LCP, DPWH had earlier built modular facilities composed of eight fully air-conditioned rooms with two hospital beds per room to accommodate 16 moderate, severe and critical cases, and 16 rooms with double-decker beds as a temporary shelter for health professionals taking care of patients.
“A Mega Modular Off-Site Hospital will be built at the National Center for Mental Health compound in Mandaluyong City.”
With the public works head’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, Sadain held a meeting with Dr. Noel V. Reyes, Medical Center Chief of the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH), and discussed the preparatory plan and proposed concept design for the construction of a Mega Modular Off-Site Hospital at the NCMH compound in Mandaluyong City.
About 11 cluster units of makeshift hospitals 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 cluster units of off-site dormitories with 96 beds as a temporary shelter for medical professionals who will provide health care services at NCMH Mega Modular Off-Site Hospital.