A Filipina doctor has set up a company to offer free COVID-19 tests in US in memory of her deceased sister who lost herr battle to the pandemic.

Filipino American doctor and businesswoman Jona Jane Tajonera lost her older sister Gina to COVID-19 in April 2020 when New York City was the epicenter of the pandemic’s first wave, as per a story from Asian Journal.

Tajonera felt helpless and thought she could have done something to at least help her sister. She slipped into depression until she realized that more and more people were getting affected being herself a public health advocate (she holds both a Masters and a Doctorate in Public Health).

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The Filipina doctor credited her team for working extra hard to support her advocacy of getting more people in underserved communities, including the uninsured, to get tested and said that her job has given her a different kind of fulfillment.

Tajonera’s U.S. Mobile Care Group started to run mobile COVID-19 testing sites by setting up tents and among her first locations were in Queens and the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, providing free tests to the underserved communities in the area.

Tajonera got a van so she and her team could go to more underserved neighborhoods in the city and the response “was good “, so she decided to get another one.

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U.S. Mobile Care Group has four vans and runs 22 testing sites providing free RT-PCR and rapid antigen testing around New York City to anyone who needs it and during the peak last month they were testing up to 500 people per site daily.

She has partnered with Steinway Hope Medical, also a Filipino-owned primary care provider, and put together an MSO or management service organization to widen their reach and with this partnership, she is able to venture into more testing sites, including the United Nations twice a week.