Dialysis center for Manila’s poor cited by UN body

A dialysis center providing free services to Manila’s indigent residents has been recognized by a United Nations body as a model public-private partnership (PPP) project.

The Manila Dialysis Center (MDC) will be included by the UN Economic Commission on Europe’s Committee on Innovation, Competitiveness and Public-Private Partnerships, in its upcoming presentation before 56 states in Geneva, Switzerland, this September, the Manila City Hall said in a statement on Saturday.

The MDC is located in the former outpatient building of Gat Andres Bonifacio Memorial Medical Center in Tondo, the largest of Manila’s six districts, which also has highest poverty incidence.

The MDC was inaugurated in 2014 during  the first term of Mayor Joseph Estrada in partnership with private company B. Braun Avitum Philippines Inc., which supplies the dialysis machines and operate the facility.

Estrada on Saturday announced plans to increase the number of dialysis machines at the center from the current 26  to at least 100 by the end of the year. —Dexter Cabalza