MARAWI CITY(PIA) —The Bangsamoro Government has turned over Php15,039,688 cash assistance to Amai Pakpak Medical Center (APMC) Monday, July 6.
The Php15-million worth of cash assistance will be utilized for the establishment of a biomolecular laboratory to be able to test for SARS-COV-2 that is compliant to the Department of Health (DOH) standards.
BARMM Chief Minister Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim and Dr. Shalimar Sani-Rakiin, Medical Center Chief of the APMC entered into a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for collaboration and cooperation in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The MOA states that “it is a mutual policy of the parties [APMC and BARMM] to ensure the delivery of excellent health services to the people and to promote the quality of health and care to the locality served by the Parties.”
Further, the APMC shall receive and process specimens for testing from BARMM, whether Covid-19-related or not, which shall follow the DOH guidelines in laboratory testing of patients, even beyond the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This signing of MOA is another manifestation of our shared commitment with APMC in fighting Covid-19. We are confident that our dear friends and counterparts from APMC can help us in this continuing battle,” Ebrahim remarked.
Ebrahim is also optimistic that the little contribution to APMC will help in providing great leap for Covid-19 response in Lanao del Sur.
“Not only did the APMC assured the accreditation of their Covid-19 testing laboratory but they are also finishing up a biomolecular laboratory that is as equally important to help out in conducting more tests daily,” Ebrahim added.
Meanwhile, Dr. Sani-Rakiin said the Bangsamoro Government’s assistance is a great help to APMC and Lanao del Sur.
“We can assure that this can save so many lives and once the biomolecular laboratory is done it will help us more to contain the pandemic,” she said.
“Presently we have 99 new cases, brought by Hatid-Tulong program of the government. Initially, we only had nine cases before its implementation,” Sani-Rakiin shared.
The APMC laboratory also recently received its License to Operate (LTO) for GenExpert Machine from the DOH.
She said the GenXpert Express is already operational in APMC for five days already. They received the LTO for only three months, just in time that the future biomolecular laboratory will be operational.
“When we are all ready for the biomolecular lab, we will be ready for the mass testing, because we were only given 720-cartridge for the next three months. So we see the biomolecular lab as a great factor to conduct the test and contain the spread of Covid-19 in Lanao del Sur,” Sani-Rakiin said.
“We also give our appreciation to the Office of the Chief Minister for the AMBAG (Ayudang Medikal mula sa Bangsamoro Government) Program where they allocated a sum of Php5-million, it was able to help 725 patients in APMC,” she added.
The infra-component for the said laboratory is already 39-percent completed and is expected to be operational on August 20 before the expiration of the LTO [for GenXpert] on September 29.
Also present during the turn-over ceremony were BARMM’s Executive Secretary Abdulraof Macacua, Assistant Executive Secretary Abdullah Cusain, Attorney General Sha Elijah Dumama-Alba, and APMC management officials. (BPI/PIA ICIC)