How can you convert a center into a COVID-19 facility?
- Procure hospital beds
- Create isolated cubicles
- Have a supply of hygienic products
- Provide food services
- Install WiFi for communication
The country truly lives in unprecedented times. Many aspects of our lifestyle have been drastically altered due to COVID-19. The virus has increasingly been putting a burden on the healthcare sector in the Philippines, which is largely struggling to cater to the influx of cases. Fortunately, there are private organizations that are helping in the crisis. They have delved into the question, how are convention centers being turned into COVID-19 facilities to aid the healthcare sector and provide services to the public?
Convention centers and other event spaces are being converted into temporary quarantine facilities. They are for Patients Under Monitoring (PUM), Patients Under Investigation (PUI), and returning OFWs required to do the mandatory 14-day quarantine. This act has eased a heavy load off from the medical centers. Want to learn about what it takes to transform a convention center into a COVID-19 facility? Read on!
Procure Hospital Beds
In order to construct a dedicated COVID-19 facility, one should first consider the provision of beds that are essential in housing affected patients. An adequate number of hospital beds are needed to accommodate patients at any given time.
You can procure hospital beds for your facility by releasing a call for donations. Take note that certain private organizations are also willing to lend out a hand in donating supplies and other provisions. These can also include volunteers, clients, and partners from private organizations that can be mobilized for the construction of these isolated bed spaces. Through this partnership, certain areas of a convention center’s spacious exhibition halls can be successfully converted into temporary quarantine spaces.
Another collaboration that you should take note of is one with a health facility or a hospital. These collaborators can provide you with capable health workers that can care for the patients.
Create Isolated Cubicles
When it comes to housing COVID-19 patients, isolation is one factor that should belong to the top of the fore. After all, the goal of isolated cubicles is to avoid cases of further infection and instances of positive re-testing of individuals. As such, it is essential for temporary COVID-19 facilities to contain isolated cubicles that can effectively simulate standard hospital settings.
As a way of unburdening the highly inundated healthcare sector, your center can help out by setting up cubicles for both hospital beds and shower spaces. You can also create areas that can serve as temporary dwelling spaces for nurses, healthcare workers, and the like.
Allowing the patients to rest is only one priority, another is to allow them to stay clean and sanitary for the duration of their stay. Water companies can lend a hand in providing water services to make this possible. Both patients and volunteers who help out in construction can make use of these shower spaces to sanitize and disinfect themselves.
Have A Supply Of Hygienic Products
Staying hygienic during the COVID-19 pandemic is highly important to keep both patients and volunteers in your center safe. A makeshift COVID-19 facility would need to have a wide array of hygienic products available for use by both patients and staff.
Some of these hygienic products include toiletries, face shields, towels, soap, alcohol, and disinfectants. Convention centers may also want to consider procuring the services of cleaning and maintenance staff to further ensure the safety in these temporary spaces.
For post-COVID-19 sanitation, prepare disinfectants and other necessary cleaning products for the entirety of your center. Plan sanitation procedures to ensure that rooms, halls, and even air-conditioning ducts will be properly disinfected.
Provide Food Services
If a convention center is aiming for highly reliable COVID-19 facilities, it’s important that it gets all bases covered in providing food services. This is made possible by creating partnerships with professional food and catering services for the benefit of construction workers, volunteers, medical staff, and more.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle if one has the COVID-19 virus is key to a potentially fast recovery. Convention centers should ensure that they’re supplying non-processed meals that can easily help everyone involved regain their health and strength. Through the provision of whole foods such as meat, vegetables, and fresh fruits, medical staff will also be better equipped to deal with patients without experiencing much trouble.
Install WiFi For Communication
Finally, convention centers that want to turn into COVID-19 facilities should also invest in a reliable WiFi connection and internet service. Through a stable WiFi connection, patients and volunteers would be able to easily communicate with family members who may wish to check on their situation.
This service can also help the center keep in touch with other volunteers who might want to offer their services for the temporary facilities.
Key Takeaway
These are just a few necessary steps that answer the question, how are convention centers being turned into COVID-19 facilities? If you want to see how else you can convert your event space into a COVID facility, take a look at the World Trade Center Metro Manila’s We Heal As One Center.
The Republic Act No. 11469 or the Bayanihan Heal As One Act was signed by the Philippine government last March 24. It is a government initiative that aims to provide a lending hand to those in need during this pandemic. The WTCMM, in partnership with The Ayala Group of Companies, cooperated in this initiative and created the We Heal As One Center. The facility has made it possible for private collaborators and volunteers to render their services and construct 500 isolation bed cubicles.
Through collaborations with private land developers and other public services, transforming convention centers into COVID-19 facilities has been a great help in the country’s fight against the pandemic.
