From L-R: Dr. Ricky Granada, Dr. Arriane De Guzman, Dr. Carlo Evangelista, Dr. Noemi Nunez, Dr. Jessa Lopez of Amang Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center, Marikina City. Photo from Dr. Arriane De Guzman’s Facebook post.

Philippines, 21 May 2020 – To show its support for hardworking frontliners in different fields battling the COVID-19 pandemic, Epson Philippines donated printers to Amang Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center (ARMMC) in Marikina City and Quezon Memorial Medical Center (QMMC) in Quezon City, as well as turned over financial aid pooled by its staff in Manila, Cebu and Davao to SOS Children’s Villages Philippines.

For medical facilities, reliable office equipment such as printers, scanners and photocopiers is crucial to generate COVID-related forms and record patient data. With the influx of COVID-19 cases recorded each day, hospitals tend to become overwhelmed and an unreliable office machine can greatly disrupt the workflow and affect the quality of service for patients who need urgent care

ARMMC’s Department of Family and Community Medicine is no stranger to this challenge. In April, the department recorded producing about 76-116 prints, 30-50 scans and 60-100 photocopies of COVID-19 forms and lab requests daily, until their lone multifunction printer broke down. To keep up with the requirements, the staff had to borrow one from an adjacent office just to continue printing forms and requests.

To offer a solution, Epson Philippines donated two units of the EcoTank L3156 all-in-one ink tank printers to the ARMMC’s Department of Family and Community Medicine for the continuous and speedy printing of COVID-19 forms and lab requests.

Epson Philippines also extended the same support to Quezon Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City, who was experiencing difficulty in printing COVID-19 forms due to a non-functioning printer. Two units of the EcoTank L3156 all-in-one ink tank printers were also delivered to QMMC’s Department of Internal Medicine to support their daily operations.

EcoTank L3156 all-in-one printers delivered to Quezon Memorial Medical Center’s Department of Internal Medicine. Photo from Pea Chy’s Facebook post.

The COVID-19 pandemic not only put forward heroes working in the medical field, but also shone a light to a different type of frontliners, social workers who are looking after abandoned and neglected children who have nowhere to go.

SOS Children’s Villages Philippines is a private, non-political organization that provides family-like care to children who have lost parental care, or to those children whose best interest is no longer to remain in their families. They have eight villages located in key cities across the country that are home to most of the approximately 86,000 children and young adults in the organization’s family-like care program.

Abandoned and neglected children are taking shelter at SOS Children’s Villages. Donations help provide them the food, hygiene supplies and vitamins they need to stay safe and healthy while in quarantine.

All of the eight SOS Children’s villages are in total lockdown, and food and emergency supplies for the children and youths are starting to run out. Like everybody else, the organization’s regular donors are affected, and they have been seeing a drastic decrease in donations since the pandemic started.

To offer a helping hand in ensuring the welfare of the children at SOS Children’s Villages in the country, Epson Philippines staff in Manila, Cebu and Davao came together and collected ₱36,800 to aid in the purchase of essential goods for children under quarantine.

“We are very privileged to have the capacity to support our frontliners serving in the medical and social welfare fields,” said Donna Ferro, Senior Manager, Brand & Communications  for Epson Philippines. “We are all going through a tough time, but we are energized to know that our small contributions can help our brothers and sisters in riding through the storm of COVID-19, and coming out stronger in the end.