MPHHI hospitals vaccinate over 13,000 workers

MANILA, Philippines — The Pangilinan Group’s Metro Pacific Hospital Holdings Inc. (MPHHI), the country’s largest hospital group, has vaccinated more than 13,000 workers in its network since the arrival of the first batches of Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines in the Philippines early this month.

The 13,000 health workers are in MPHHI’s 18 hospitals nationwide.

The network’s three largest hospitals in terms of employee population 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 health care 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,” MPHHI chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said.

MPHHI president and chief executive officer Augusto Palisoc Jr. underscored that 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 added.

In terms of storage, the Pangilinan-led Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (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.

Overall, the Pangilinan Group supports 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 toward 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.