COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Two hospitals in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao have received a ventilator each for their COVID-19 patients through the UN Development Programme.
The ventilators were released on Thursday to the Sanitarium Hospital in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao and the Cotabato Regional Medical Center in Cotabato City by Bangsamoro Local Government Minister Naguib Sinarimbo and the region's acting health minister, physician Amirel Usman.
The event was witnessed by representatives from UNDP and from the office of Bangsamoro Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim.
Sinarimbo is overseeing the Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence, or READI contingent of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which is in the forefront, along with Usman’s office, of BARMM’s anti-COVID-19 campaign.
The ventilators the BARMM donated to the Sanitarium Hospital and the CRMC, which is central Mindanao’s largest state-run medical center, were purchased by the Bangsamoro regional government from abroad.
The BARMM government earlier built a P22-million COVID-19 isolation facility in the compound of the Sanitarium Hospital in the Pinarang Area in Sultan Kudarat town.
Besides the ventilators, the READI also provided both hospitals with an electric air purifier each and more than a hundred kilos of biohazard protection supplies.