While face-to-face classes remain suspended, a Catholic university in Davao City in the southern Philippines will soon be used as a COVID-19 vaccination site.
The Bajada campus gym of the University of the Immaculate Conception will be “repurposed” as the city government works to administer the vaccine on people.
“The university is most willing to allow this particular facility to be of help in the vaccination campaign of the [Department of Health],” said Archbishop Romulo Valles of Davao.
For almost a year now, the university has been “home” to the nurses of the Southern Philippine Medical Center who are attending to COVID-19 patients.
“[The school] will always be supportive in any way we can,” said Sister Marissa Viri of the Religious of the Virgin Mary, the university’s president.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines has earlier offered Church facilities to serve as vaccination hubs ahead of the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines in the country.
The Archdiocese of Manila and the Diocese of Novaliches have already allowed the government to use its parishes and schools as inoculation sites.
Archbishop Valles, who is also president of the bishops’ conference, said the “Gospel-inspired actions” are needed “to remind us of goodness and caring for each other.”
“Each one can give his or her share in our collective effort to combat and end this pandemic,” he said.
