The School of Health Sciences raised funds from internal private donors to provide spartan but nutritious meal packs to persons manning the busiest quarantine checkpoints in Tacloban City and Palo, Leyte where the campus is located. Checkpoint personnel were targeted for this project because they are among the most vulnerable but also the most neglected group in the hierarchy of front liners.
The lunch pack project served four checkpoints at the border shared by Tacloban and Palo and a fifth checkpoint at the border of Leyte and Samar, where the first Covid-19 confirmed cases in Eastern Visayas were detected. After eight days of project implementation, SHS has already distributed 240 lunch packs. The funds raised by the school is enough to sustain the provision of lunch packs to checkpoints through April 30, 2020, when the community quarantine declarations in Tacloban and Palo will expire.
SHS continues to work with its local government partners during the Covid-19 crisis. The school is coordinating with the Barangay Health Emergency Response Team (BHERT) of Barangay Luntad in Palo, Leyte where the SHS main campus is located. The SHS Mercy Relief prefabricated building was identified as a possible storage facility for barangay supplies and equipment during the Covid-19 crisis.
In addition, SHS has distributed surgical masks to two of its local government partners and learning communities, particularly their RHU personnel in the municipalities of Pastrana and Babatngon in Leyte Province.
