Major quarantine facility completion seen today

MANILA, Philippines — The construction of a 300-bed Mega Quarantine Center at the Philippine Arena in Bocaue, Bulacan is expected to be completed today, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) said over the weekend. 

The project, which started on April 20, was 85 percent complete as of Saturday afternoon, DPWH Undersecretary Emil Sadain, chief of the agency’s task force on the augmentation of local and national health facilities, said.

The DPWH targeted to complete the construction today, or two days ahead of schedule set on April 29.

Once completed, the facility will be inspected by the Department of Health (DOH) and the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases to determine if it can be turned over to them for operation.

Both the DOH and the IATF will decide when the facility could start accepting patients with coronavirus disease. 

The construction team has completed setting up cubicles that would accommodate 300 patients.

Installation of air conditioning units and electrical cables was done yesterday. 

The facility, composed of three large tents and located at the Ciudad de Victoria property of the Iglesia Ni Cristo, has six nurse stations. 

Each tent will have two nurse stations. Tent number 1 has 92 bed cubicles, while Tent numbers 2 and 3 have 104 bed cubicles each.

Included at the quarantine facility are three 40-footer container vans, which house a toilet, mess hall, disinfecting tents and supply storage.

Sadain said he wrote to Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan, asking to help them provide continuous power supply to the tents.

Meralco engineers and linemen were dispatched in the area to install power posts, cables, transformers and other accessories that will supply electricity to the facility.