Two modular hospitals intended for moderate to severe COVID-19 cases and two dormitories for healthcare workers were turned over to the Quezon City Institute in Quezon City Tuesday.

The Department of Public Works and Highways recently completed the construction of the facilities which can accommodate 44 COVID-19 patients and 64 medical personnel manning the operations at the Quezon City Institute.

“The completion of this modular hospital will address the urgent need for medical facilities made inevitable by the pandemic,” Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar said.

Each modular hospital will be operated by medical teams from the Department of Health (DoH) and Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center in Manila.

The facilities were designed by the DPWH Task Force to Facilitate Augmentation of Local and National Health Facilities in coordination with DoH to have specific rooms for the donning or putting on of health care professionals’ personal protective equipment (PPE) such as disposable gowns, gloves and shoe covers, and area for doffing or taking off of PPEs in order to protect and limit spread of contamination.

The field modular hospital will have a copper tube for oxygen and tanks, separate nursing station, equipment laboratory, pantry, storage, CCTV lines, and monitoring board.

DPWH Undersecretary Emil Sadain said that by February, an additional three modular hospitals with 66 beds are expected to be completed by the DPWH inside the Quezon Institute compound.

Villar, who also serves as an isolation czar in the response against the pandemic, formed the DPWH Task Force to Facilitate Augmentation of Local and National Health Facilities to handle the construction of isolation and health facilities all over the country that made up for the shortage of hospital beds because of COVID-19 outbreak.