Through SM Foundation, SM is donating over PhP 170 million towards the fight against COVID-19, surpassing its initial allocation of PhP 100 million.
This is to ensure that healthcare workers in hospitals nationwide are armored with personal protective equipment (PPEs) – full protective suits (including for ICU use), face shields, gloves, N95 masks, surgical masks, goggles, and including raincoats as requested by some hospitals as back-up alternatives
The SM Group also wants to ensure that testing is made more widely available, by supporting and donating the local Manila Healthtek test kits developed by the UP-NIH team (upon DOH approval), providing the testing needs of RITM, and donating FDA-approved PCR kits sourced from Korea.
The company has been providing ICU-grade ventilators to help hospitals manage patients with severe cases.
Among the designated COVID-19 hospitals that received PPE donations as of March 27, 2020 are University of the Philippines PGH, Lung Center of the Philippines, Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital, also to include the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), National Kidney and Transplant Institute, San Lazaro Hospital, East Avenue Medical Center, Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center, Philippine Heart Center, National Children’s Hospital, Rizal Medical Center.
Other hospitals include, Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital, Chinese General Hospital, University of the East Ramon Magsaysay (UERM) Memorial Medical Center, Manila Doctors Hospital, University of Sto. Tomas Hospital, Makati Medical Center, The Medical City, Ospital ng Muntinlupa, and more.
Several shipments of PPEs are also on their way to provincial hospitals nationwide, including Rizal, Pampanga, Bataan, Quezon, Pangasinan, Catanduanes, Cebu, Iloilo, Samar, Tacloban, Surigao del Sur, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Marawi, Zamboanga, among others.
SM has committed to be of service to the Filipino public, its hospitals, and its government, to help contain and overcome the COVID-19 crisis.