Since the arrival of the first batches of the Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines in the Philippines in early March, the 18 hospitals in the Metro Pacific Hospitals network have supported the National Government’s mission to vaccinate all healthcare workers as soon as possible.
As of Friday, March 12, 2021, more than 13,000 workers in the Metro Pacific hospital group have received a vaccine for COVID-19. The network’s three largest hospitals in terms of employee population—namely Makati Medical Center, Asian Hospital, and Cardinal Santos Medical Center—have been able to vaccinate majority of their workers. MPHHI has likewise vaccinated more than half of its healthcare workers. Based on vaccine stocks currently on hand, the network is expected to vaccinate over 10,000 more individuals in the coming days.
“There remain several formidable problems for our country to solve, whether it’s ensuring the health and well-being of our people, or sustaining the economy during such a turbulent period,” said Manuel V. Pangilinan, Chairman of Metro Pacific Hospitals Holdings Inc. (MPHHI) “But the first step to solving many of them is the same: the successful rollout of safe and effective vaccines. We are the largest private hospital group in the Philippines, and it’s important for us to help the country’s vaccination drive as much as we can. And that begins with getting our hospital workers inoculated.”
Augusto Palisoc Jr., President & Chief Executive Officer of MPHHI, adds that the operations in each hospital provide reason for optimism about the hospital group’s vaccination program. “It’s being executed very well,” Palisoc said. “We’re still perfecting some things, and making sure we can source enough vaccines for our hospitals in all areas of the Philippines. But so far we’ve seen our hospitals strike a good balance between speed, comfort, and safety. We’re learning a lot, and we expect to have completely streamlined processes very soon.”
He adds that the vaccination will provide both their employees and their patients a deeper assurance of safety. “We’ve been prioritizing the safety of our hospitals ever since the pandemic began,” he said. “But we’re glad to see thousands of our employees, doctors, and outsourced personnel receive added protection from the virus. We’re also looking forward to our patients regaining the confidence to come to our hospitals again, given that they’ll be interacting with frontliners who are mostly vaccinated.”
Pangilinan, through Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC) and its logistics arm MetroPac Movers Inc., also initiated the storage of the initial 487,000 vials of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines and the 600,000 doses of the CoronaVac vaccine from the Beijing-based biopharmaceutical company Sinovac.
Pangilinan is among the country’s top business leaders to support the national government in providing two million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines for frontliners. The vaccine is developed by the Oxford University in the United Kingdom.
“It is our privilege to assist the government in bringing the vaccines to Filipinos, particularly to medical frontliners. As the Philippines continues to move towards economic revival, it is in everybody’s best interest to protect as many Filipinos as possible from the virus. This additional batch of vaccines, this time from Oxford-AstraZeneca, is a great start,” Pangilinan said.
PLDT and MPIC’s AstraZeneca vaccine support is coursed through the PLDT-Smart Foundation. This aims to help prioritize the inoculation of the country’s frontliners.
