Subic Gym converted into isolation facility

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO. The Subic Gymnasium has been converted as a quarantine site for patients under investigation and persons under monitoring.

SAN ANTONIO, ZAMBALES –– The Subic Gymnasium, which hosted some of the events of the 30th Southeast Asian Games last year, has been converted into a community quarantine site for patients being probed and monitored for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Patients under investigation (PUI) for the virus, who exhibit mild to moderate symptoms, could be sent there to relieve the Allied Care Experts Medical Center-Baypointe hospital, which has a limited capacity, to take in COVID-19 patients, according to Wilma Eisma, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) chair.

“With increased capacity, we will be able to provide for the needs of the local Freeport population and, should the need arises, to accommodate as well referrals by the Department of Health (DOH) from other areas,” Eisma said.

The government’s COVID-19 protocol grants DOH the authority to assign and apportion PUIs among different hospitals to manage overall capacity, she said.

Aside from the Gymnasium, SBMA also took over the Leciel Hotel to be used as an additional care and isolation facility.

As early as March, SBMA had eyed the former Hanjin Condominium at Subic’s Naval Magazine area as a potential isolation facility, but that idea was scrapped because it was too far.

“As care and isolation facilities, both Leciel Hotel and the Subic Gym will be under the supervision of experts from the DOH-Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Unit (RESU) and Baypointe Hospital,” Eisma said.

Edited by LZB