MANILA
Rozhiell Fernandez adjusted her mask and attended to her newborn twins lying on a cramped cot inside Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital’s Ward 4, one of the busiest maternity wards in the world.
Women in faded hospital gowns surrounded her, cradling their babies on beds pressed together in pairs to accommodate up to six nursing mothers at a time. The overcrowding rendered safe distancing impossible and, occasionally, a mother displaying COVID-19 symptoms was wheeled away to an isolation wing.
Fernandez did not want to be at this 100-year-old public hospital, nicknamed the “Baby Factory.” It lies in one of the poorest neighborhoods of the Philippine capital, hemmed in by shanties and the infamous Manila City Jail.