Cotabato City (July 06, 2020)—The Bangsamoro Government has turned over a sum of P15,039,688 cash assistance to Amai Pakpak Medical Center (APMC) in Marawi City, Lanao del Sur on Monday, July 6, in Cotabato City.
The Php15-million worth of cash assistance will be utilized for the establishment of biomolecular laboratory to be able to test for SARS-COV-2 that is compliant to Department of Health (DOH) standards.
BARMM Chief Minister Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim and Dr. Shalimar Sani-Rakiin, Medical Center Chief of the APMC signed into a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for its collaboration and cooperation in battling 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 today to APMC will help in providing great leap for Covid-19 response in Lanao del Sur.
“Not only did the AMPC 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 (formerly known as Hatid-Probinsya program) of the government. Initially, we only had 9 cases before its implementation,” Sani-Rakiin shared.
On Monday, June 29, 2020, APMC laboratory recently received its License to Operate (LTO) for GenExpert Machine from the DOH.
“The GenXpert Express is already operational in APMC for five days already. We received the LTO for only three months, just in time that the future biomolecular laboratory will be operational,” Sani-Rakiin said.
“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,” she added.
“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,” Sani-Rakiin 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] in 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. (Bureau of Public Information)
