LA Salle Green Hills (LSGH) has opened its campus to serve as an inoculation site for San Miguel Corp.’s (SMC) P1-billion vaccination program for its employees and their families, business partners and stakeholders.
Supportive of the country’s efforts toward herd immunity, SMC recently provided initial doses of the Sinovac vaccine to more than 500 of its frontline personnel under the A4 Category for the pilot run of the project. It aims to be in full swing come August once shipments of AstraZeneca and Moderna jabs arrive.
A celebration of the Holy Mass at the Student Parkway formally launched the program, with Sen. Joel Villanueva, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 Chief Implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. and Deputy Chief Implementer Vivencio Dizon, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chairman Benjamin Abalos Jr., Mandaluyong City Mayor Carmelita Abalos, President Ramon Ang of SMC and President Br. Edmundo “Dodo” Fernandez, FSC of LSGH in attendance.
“We are vaccinating, for free, [more than] 70,000 in our work force,” said Ang. “We are also looking to make the vaccines available to more Filipinos by extending access to those in our work force’s own networks.”
“LSGH has always had a tradition of helping out for the good of the country,” Br. Fernandez shared. “We…opened our campus last year at the height of the pandemic for frontliners of certain hospitals.”
“And so, our home will be yours for the next six months,” he said. “We are at your service, and we are here to ensure…things run smoothly for you. All these efforts are our own little way of contributing to the [nation’s] healing.”
The 60-year-old Catholic educational institution ensures that standard health and safety protocols are observed during the inoculations. Employees, together with the health-care partners, are advised to strictly follow the campus’ entry protocols, which include the mandatory wearing of face masks and face shields, submission of prefilled health questionnaire forms, and scanning. The institution aims to provide jabs for 1,000 individuals daily.
In May 2021 LSGH likewise opened its campus to serve as vaccination site for Barangay Wack-Wack Greenhills East residents and aid the Department of Health in increasing the number of vaccination sites around Mandaluyong City. Another vaccination site, the Jose Rizal University (JRU) which is jointly-managed by SMC and the city government, will also accept individuals under the A4 category.
The multinational publicly listed holding company has stated its intent to hire 300 medical professionals for this advocacy, and to assist local government units in their own vaccine distribution efforts.
Aside from LSGH and JRU, SMC is eyeing 15 other vaccination areas in the provinces of Laguna, Cavite, Batangas, Albay, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Isabela, Bataan, Cebu, as well as the cities of Mandaue, Iloilo, Bacolod, Davao, and Cagayan de Oro.