San Juan ramps up health care facilities
The San Juan City government has increased its capacity to accommodate coronavirus disease patients to 197 hospital beds as part of reinforcement efforts to combat the spread of the deadly virus.
The additional capacity is on top of doctors, nurses and other medical workers looking after them 24 hours a day.
At the start of the pandemic, the local government quickly converted the San Juan Medical Center (SJMC), a primary care hospital, into a COVID-19 facility with the opening of a 26-bed isolation ward and 17-bed isolation rooms.
The hospital’s bed capacity was further expanded with the installation of lightweight, modular container vans converted into airconditioned isolation rooms with 18 beds.
The San Juan National High School Annex Basketball Court was converted into a 36-bed isolation facility last March and used by the San Juan PNP.
SJMC now has 10 ventilators with four new ones acquired by the city in March to supplement the six that SJMC already has. With the city’s zero balance billing policy, the local government will shoulder all cost of patients in the hospital.
Another facility adding 100 more beds to isolate all COVID-19-related patients is the city’s Kalinga Center. The center, a joint project of the San Juan City government and the Alumni Association of Xavier School, was originally only a quarantine facility for persons under investigation and persons under monitoring.
But with the increasing number of positive patients in Metro Manila, it was converted into a COVID-19 treatment facility for asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic patients in its upper floors.
The San Juan National High School Annex Basketball Court was converted into a 36-bed isolation facility last March and used by the San Juan PNP. With the increasing cases of COVID-19 in the country, the facility was converted for the use of San Juan constituents in general, not just police personnel.
In a push to encourage isolation in the city’s facilities instead of home quarantine, where the risk of contagion to other members of the household is high, the local government promised all those who enter any of the three facilities will not be paying a single centavo as medicines, board and lodging will be paid for by the city government.
They will be served breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. Positive patients will also receive P3,000 financial aid during their stay at the city’s isolation facilities while away from their families. All of these facilities also have free WiFi access for all the patients.