MANILA, Philippines—More than a hundred medical interns of the state-run Philippine General Hospital (PGH) in Manila have volunteered to stay in the frontlines despite being ordered to go home.
In a statement on Monday (March 16), the University of the Philippines (UP) said the Association of the Philippine Medical Colleges gave out a directive to pull out medical interns out of all hospitals in the National Capital Region last March 14.
More than 100 interns at the PGH, however, volunteered to return to duty to help patients and other health care workers already saddled with COVID-19-related tasks, UP said on a Facebook post.
“The University salutes the hard work and bayanihan spirit among the frontliners, health workers and medical professionals leading the country’s battle against COVID-19,” it said.
The PGH welcomed the reinforcements with assurances of personal protective equipment, food, lodging and standby medical care for all of them.
It earlier appealed to the public for donations for protective gear for its workers.
Medical workers around Metro Manila have been tirelessly fulfilling tasks round-the-clock in the face of a rising number of COVID-19 cases.
As of Tuesday (March 17) there are 187 confirmed cases of the disease in the country, while 12 people have died and 4 have recovered.
Worldwide, more than 182,000 have been infected and over 7,100 have died.