Country club offers shelter to weary docs, nurses

An exclusive country club in Muntinlupa City has offered to serve as temporary shelter for doctors, nurses and other health workers of the government-run Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), the first institution in the country, to conduct testing for the coronavirus and provide care for people infected with the bug.

The much-needed help from Palms Country Club in Alabang comes as the Philippines continues to receive assistance from other countries, the latest of which is Singapore, which donated 3,000 test kits and a polymerase chain reaction machine.

The country’s medical centers are running short on personal protective equipment (PPE) like masks, goggles and gloves as well as hazmat suits, ventilators and hospital beds. (See related story on Page A4.)While the government has funds to buy PPE for health workers, the supply isn’t just there, according to Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.

Vergeire on Tuesday said though that donations of PPE continue to stream in, most recently from the Chinese government which gave 100,000 surgical masks, 10,000 N95 masks and 10,000 sets of PPE.

Stop-gap measure

Around 150,000 masks have been distributed to hospitals since Monday, according to the Department of Transportation, just as several hospitals begged the public to donate PPE for their staff fighting the coronavirus.

The masks were donated by a Good Samaritan who reached out to Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade.

Because of the shortage of masks, many people, including health workers, are using do-it-yourself face shields.

While makeshift PPE may not fully protect health workers from the virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledged on Monday that medical staff would have to make do with these for now due to the global shortage of PPE.

Rabindra Abeyasinghe, WHO country representative, said the agency was not encouraging the use of improvised PPE but acknowledged that this was a “stop-gap measure.”

“In the circumstance [we are in now], any protection is better than no protection,” he added.

As of Tuesday, Vergeire said, the Department of Health (DOH) had distributed 56,000 N95 masks and 59,000 surgical masks to hospitals.

‘Selfless front-liners’

Vergeire said hospitals could request PPE through [email protected]. They can pick up the PPE at the DOH offices or have the items shipped to them, depending on their location.

Francis Gotianun, president of Palms Country Club, said the club’s board and members were responding to the “need of our selfless front-liners” and “to ensure that they have a place to stay that is accessible to the RITM.”

The club is just a kilometer away from the RITM, and medical workers can walk for just 10 to 15 minutes to reach the DOH-run institute.

“The club will provide the accommodation while Filinvest has pledged to shoulder the utilities, including power and water consumption charges that The Palms will incur for the duration of the front-liners’ stay at the facility,” Gotianun said.

One of the few local institutions conducting laboratory tests for the coronavirus, the RITM seeks to protect Filipinos against infectious diseases by undertaking globally competitive research, training, clinical and diagnostic services, and production of biologicals.

Makeshift sleeping and shower facilities have been installed at Palms Country Club after it was closed to members during the lockdown. For now, the shelter has a 70-bed capacity and has vowed to meet the requirements of the RITM for its own sanitation crew.

Apart from saving travel time for health care workers during the quarantine period, having a base camp close to their place of work also reduces the risk of bringing infection to their families and the rest of the community.

The club told members that food provisions were not part of the arrangement.

In the face of the huge demand for testing, the Department of Foreign Affairs said imported or donated kits from abroad would be rejected by the Bureau of Customs if these were not the kind used by the DOH to diagnose COVID-19.

—With a report from Krixia Subingsubing