Philanthropic architecture for vaccination and Covid centers
IN April 2020, I attended an international conference where an infectious disease specialist warned us that Covid-19 is mutating rapidly. He said we could even have Covid-20, 21 and 22 for the rest of our lives. A year on since the lockdown last year and we are back to stricter community quarantines and hospitals have once again reached critical capacity.
It is also reported that the Philippines is experiencing the worst surge in Southeast Asia, with more than 800,000 total infections as of April — the highest number of active cases in the region. Moreover, according to World Bank data, as of last month, we are behind in terms of administered doses, with only 0.2 doses per 100 people compared to Indonesia’s 2.4 doses and Malaysia’s 1.1 doses.
Vaccination centers
During our Rotary Club of Makati meeting, among other suggestions and comments I shared with Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chairman Benhur Abalos, I mentioned to him the best practices elsewhere in the world for vaccination centers. Dubai’s vaccination rollout is among the best we have researched. Theirs is progressive, practical, efficient, effective, pro-people and pro-business, and provides free vaccines for all with no red tape. Even the 90-percent foreign population residing in Dubai are eligible for free vaccination. There are vaccination centers in the shopping malls that are open for business. People can shop and dine before and after their vaccination.
May I recommend the Dubai experience? I would like to think shopping mall owners would agree provided that the malls will be open to shoppers. With the rate of the Philippines’ ongoing vaccine rollout, sadly, we have substandard vaccination venues. It will probably take 10 years to vaccinate the whole population. Shopping malls and places of worship can be alternative venues. We are currently preparing architectural designs for vaccination centers inspired by global best practices that can help improve what we have now. We are in dire need of more vaccination sites, and the existing ones need improvements in their space requirements, layouts, processes, and sanitation and disinfection procedures, among others.
Covered basketball courts converted to Covid centers
Our hospitals are simply overwhelmed and are having difficulty accommodating even those with severe cases. In 2006, the Department of Health provided the standard of one hospital bed per 1,000 population. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends five hospital beds per 1,000 population. With our population of 110 million, to meet WHO standards, we should have 550,000 hospital beds. With the minimum standard of at least 100 beds for a provincial or general hospital, we should have a total of 5,250 hospitals. Sadly, based on data from the 2018 National Health Facility Registry of the Department of Health (DoH), the Philippines only has 1,456 hospitals.
In contrast, a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development presented data for other countries’ allotment of hospital beds per 1,000 population: 13 for Japan, 11 for South Korea, 8 for Germany, 6 for France, 4 for the Netherlands, 3 for the US, and 2.4 for Singapore. Given that the Philippines will have a population of 148.3 million in 2050, it should have 148,300 hospital beds by that time based on DoH’s standards. Applying the WHO’s recommendation, the Philippines should have 741,500 hospital beds by 2050.
Last April 2020, Palafox Associates and Palafox Architecture Group donated our architectural designs for Covid Ligtas Centers that convert basketball courts into community-based medical facilities to decongest overcrowded hospitals. We even received an award for our philanthropic architecture. The number of hospitals in our country is way below the standard, and we thought of covered courts because these are readily available in 44,000 barangay in 1,600 towns and cities. We created these designs in collaboration with hospital managers, health systems professionals from the Philippine Society of Public Health Physicians and the Alliance for Improving Health Outcomes, emergency and disasters experts, and graduate students from the Asian Institute of Management Masters in Innovation and Business. For our proposed design, a basketball court or a 392 sqm (14 meters by 28 meters) semi-covered facility can be retrofitted and converted into a community-based isolation unit that can provide basic accommodation and valuable health care. The floor plan can accommodate 32 patients who will be provided with individual personal space and in-house support from a team of health care assistants and barangay health workers. The flow of patient movement of staff are clearly presented in the design manual. The centers will include facilities and spaces like an entrance lobby and swabbing area, admission triage, partitioned patients’ area with 32 beds, nursing units, working area, toilets, hand washing areas and a supplies/pantry room, among others.
I hope we can improve our health care infrastructure well into the 21st century.