Tycoon Manuel Pangilinan agreed to raise the bed allocation for COVID-19 patients in Metro Pacific's hospital unit, the Department of Health said Friday, as confirmed infections continued to rise on the back of looser restrictions.
Metro Pacific Hospital Holdings will increase COVID-19 bed capacity by 20 to 30 percent, Health Usec. Rosario Vergeire said. The group has 23 hospitals including some of Metro Manila's largest: Makati Medical Center, Asian Hospital and Medical Center and Cardinal Santos Medical Center.
Pangilinan, who chairs Metro Pacific, also commited to help finish a 250-bed COVID-19 hospital at the East Avenue Medical Center in Quezon City including support for hospital beds, ICU beds and mechanical ventilators.
Confirmed cases totaled 76,444 as of Friday, three days before President Rodrigo Duterte details his plan to beat the pandemic in his penultimate State of the Nation Address. Metro Manila is the epicenter of the outbreak in the Philippines and the country's testing czar, Sec. Vince Dizon, said the roughly 10 million people in the capital region could be screened in pools.
