As the medical needs for COVID-19 patients continue to grow, large event venues are being converted as additional health centers to manage COVID-19 patients with mild-asymptomatic conditions. The World Trade Center (WTC) in Pasay City is one such event venue which is now being developed as a 501-bed facility which will house mild cases who have no access to isolation areas.
On April 9, Manila Water Foundation (MWF) deployed 25 water dispensers and 50 units of 5-gallon bottled drinking water to augment the water needs of frontliners in the facility where Manila Water was tapped to install showers for the patients. Ayala Corporation (AC) and the Makati Development Corporation (MDC) are leading the efforts in converting the facility, together with the IICP Group and its affiliate company, Manila Exposition Complex, Inc. (MEC).
MWF Executive Director Reginald Andal shared that this is an opportunity to serve more people amidst the fight against COVID-19. “Manila Water Foundation fully supports the initiative of Ayala Corporation to convert WTC into a healthcare facility. The access to drinking water with hot and cold dispensers can greatly provide relief to the patients and medical frontliners on their daily operations. This is one of our many contributions to flatten the curve, win against the virus and reclaim normalcy in our lives.”
Since March 20, Manila Water Foundation has been donating bottled water, water dispensers, food packs and hygiene kits to hospital frontliners, quarantined university students, clinic and pharmaceutical frontliners, Barangay Health and Emergency Response Teams, and street dwellers. On April 17, MWF will be donating food, medicine and hygiene kits to low-income households to two barangays in Quezon City.
After a month since it started its COVID-19 response, the Foundation would have given a total of a little less than a million worth of in-kind donations, including an infomercial and hundreds of posters on proper handwashing.
The relief efforts are under Manila Water Foundation’s Agapay Tubig program, a disaster response program that aims to provide water relief to disaster-stricken areas and Health in Our Hands, a hygiene education program that aims to share knowledge on proper hygiene practices to promote healthy living.