Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 13) — San Miguel Corporation (SMC) president and chief operating officer Ramon S. Ang, through the RSA foundation, has committed to build a hospital that specializes in infectious disease research.
The SMC said over the weekend that the state-of-the-art hospital will be built on a three to five-hectare property in the southern part of Luzon to help “future-proof society post-pandemic” and provide care for ambulatory patients.
“This pandemic has been an eye-opener for all of us. Our health care system needs to be strengthened. For this reason, we want to help build up our country’s capability to handle future pandemics and other health crises,” Ang said in a statement.
“We envision this hospital to be resilient and adaptable,” he added. “It will operate efficiently, improve health services, and make health care more accessible and affordable to a greater number of Filipinos.”
The hospital will also contain a research facility that will provide support for government on public health concerns, specifically, infectious diseases.
Over the last six months, SMC, under Ang, emerged as a leading private sector partner in COVID-19 response.
The SMC allotted ₱500 million out of its over ₱13 billion COVID-19 response package to donate medical-grade personal protective gear and medical equipment to government and public and private hospitals.
Its donations of RT-PCR testing machines, fully automated RNA extraction machines, and PCR test kits alone, have also raised the country’s total testing capacity by 15,000 tests per day.
