The Office of the Vice President (OVP) on Wednesday, March 24, said it was able to provide P56.84 million worth of test kits and equipment to various hospitals and health facilities nationwide last year.
According to the 2020 annual report released by OVP, seven hospitals, two COVID-19 molecular laboratories, and another health facility received 43,000 testing kits.
Most of the test kits had been given to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Muntinlupa City, with 12,750 test kits worth P5.32 million.
Another 10,000 testing kits, this time produced by the University of the Philippines worth P14.78 million, were also sent to V. Luna Hospital in Quezon City and San Lazaro Hospital and the Philippine General Hospital, both in Manila.
Outside Metro Manila, the recipients of the test kits were Iloilo Provincial Hospital, Iloilo City COVID-19 Laboratory, Muntinlupa city government, UP-Los Banos Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory, Zamboanga del Sur Medical Center, Dr. Jorge P. Royeca Hospital in General Santos City, and Cotabato Regional and Medical Center.
Vice President Leni Robredo’s office allocated funds to purchase test kits for testing centers and laboratories in various areas in its bid to boost the government’s testing capacity.
Relying on private partnerships, the OVP has also provided various forms of assistance to health workers and non-medical frontliners such as personal protective equipment, food and care packages, and free shuttle services and dormitories.
In her message published in the same report, Robredo stressed the importance of collaborating with local government and private partners to deliver the services and assistance needed in far-flung provinces and in private and public hospitals around the country during the height of the virus outbreak last year.
“Whether it’s turning over livelihood assistance and equipment to the poorest communities, or responding to the immediate needs of our kababayans during this pandemic, we find the gaps and fill them. All this we were able to do, because collaboration served for us as an instrument to make significant change in the lives of our people,” she said.
While it is easy to “abandon hope,” the vice president reminds everyone that “every difficulty is an opportunity to do more good.”
Through the stories of bayanihan “in its truest, most community-driven, most Filipino sense,” Robredo said she believed that Filipinos can rise again because “this is who we are as Filipinos, always responding to the worst of times with the best in ourselves.”