Built in seven days, May 5 to 11, a 15-bed emergency quarantine facility (EQF), will be turned over on the 8th day, May 12, to The Medical City (TMC) Pasig, one of the first hospitals overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.
This is the second EQF donated by Unity in Isolation (U ’n I), a charity group formed late March to construct SafeTest Isolation Tents in major hospitals across the country. The first is part of a complex for COVID patients in The Medical City South Luzon completed last week.
“Although other hospitals have shared the load, TMC PASIG still needs a SafeTest Isolation Tent to help triage and quarantine patients suspected to have Covid-19,” said Dr. Beatrice Tiongco who spearheads U ’n I.
Costing half a million pesos with a footprint of 6 meters by 26 meters, the Safetest Tent jumpstarted by reinforcing the original EQF design of a Filipino firm, WTA Architecture, which uploaded schemes and specs free for anyone to use.
“Speed is indeed crucial in identifying and isolating,” said Martin Leyeza of ComWorks Inc., a major player of U ’n I. “Within a few weeks in April, hospitals reached maximum capacity. The need for field hospitals and test centers became increasingly crucial.”
A phone call and a COVID case seeded Unity in Isolation.
Axel Kornerup, Resident Entrepreneur of InterVenn Biosciences Inc., called Leyeza, his partner in advocacies, “to contribute to this unprecedented crisis by providing the most impact with available resources.” InterVenn is a San Francisco based biotech company using AI (artificial intelligence) driven holistic approach to biomarkers discovery.
In the meantime Leyeza was still reeling and self-isolating after bringing his sister, Cynthia Cabrera, a COVID survivor, to the hospital mid-March. He witnessed the super heroes, collectively termed frontliners—doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants, alleviate the patients to their own detriment. Suspected cases, mostly elderlies, spilled out of hospitals’ emergency rooms. The economic divide glared in COVID testing and treating.
Moved by this heinous hospital scene, Leyeza quickly teamed up with his friend, Kornerup, and Dr. Beatrice Tiangco, CEO of Cancer Registry Philippines, to form Unity in Isolation.
Twenty four years ago, Leyeza built ComWorks which ranks consistently on the Top 500 Philippine companies in revenue. It’s one of the country’s largest wholesaler of telecommunications services and mobile network equipment.
Kornerup, a La Salle and UP alumnus, “built and ran multiple business platforms and have founded four companies, all market leaders.” He is founding director and CEO of netVoice Inc., netSolar Inc., and netNRG Inc., among others listed in his LinkedIn profile.
These two disruptors brought in the third innovator to lead the team, Dr.Tiongco, CEO and founder of Cancer CARE Registry Philippines, a non-profit, nongovernmental foundation, with a goal to build nationwide registries to benefit cancer patients.
Impeccably credentialed Dr. Tiongco, also a member of the board of directors of The Medical City Pasig, “is the logical choice to head the charity group for Safetest Isolation Tent since she can bridge the hospitals needs and the Unity in Isolation resources with the goal of using the tents post-pandemic,” said Maite Tarrayo, Leyeza’s daughter and wingwoman.
They tweaked the design and renamed it SafeTest Isolation Tent “since the group can provide a testing facility and testing kits should the partner hospital require.
We are not just building tents, we are in close coordination with hospital needs beyond COVID-19. The tents will be used for cancer screening programs of the hospitals in the Cancer Care network,” Tarrayo explained.
Next week’s target is Bicol, a region with one of the fastest growing COVID-19 cases. U ’n I is partnering with two Cancer Care Network partner hospitals and donors led by ComWorks. Bicol happens to be the hometown of Leyeza’s wife, Mely, who succumbed to brain cancer, glioblastoma, a few years ago.
Dr. Tiongco’s nationwide Cancer CARE Registry which was just accredited September 2019 has a network of hospitals in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao to supplement government and private healthcare initiatives for the Filipino people.
“InterVenn provides various assistance, website, payment gateway setup for donations. The programmers have generously donated out of their own pockets to U ’n I,” said Kornerup.
McCormick Philippines through CEO Steven Sy, is one of the first organizations who donated to the cause. So did NetSolar, a clean energy company, through CEO/founder Paulo Concio.
The COVID-19 testing kits are purchased from Manila HealthTek Inc. of Dr. Raul Destura, the Filipino scientist who developed the low-cost kits.
BCD Pinpoint, the only full service direct marketing agency in the Philippines also an industry leader, provided concepts and strategies through founder J. Richard Soriano.
Tuason Development Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of the Hijo Resources Corp., in Madaum, Tagum City, will lead efforts to network with hospitals in Mindanao.
“Unlike in Wuhan, a landlocked province in Hubei, China, a single 1000 bed quarantine facility was built. United in Isolation together with our growing number of partners, aims to build separate 15-bed tents on COVID hotspots across our archipelago, but with a single goal of separating the infected from the uninfected in order to flatten the curve,” said Dr. Tiongco.
Check out the FB page of Unity in Isolation.