VSMMC’s cancer center to open by June 2019

The planned cancer center of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City may be operational by June next year.

It is marked as the first public cancer treatment facility in the Visayas that will benefit more of the indigent patients.

VSMMC Chief Dr. Gerardo Aquino, Jr. said construction of the six-storey building has started last June and may run for about a year.

He said the building’s foundation and the two basements are already completed, as the building construction has already commenced.

Aquino said people could also expect that the edifice is more spacious than the other existing buildings, since each floor would have high ceilings.

He likened the cancer center’s ambience as that of hotels. More than that, Aquino said the facility will house complete “high-end” equipment for cancer treatment or therapy – one of which is the linear accelerator (LINAC) machine.

He said contractors are prioritizing the setting up of the bunker of the LINAC that is almost completed, while the management is waiting for the equipment to arrive in Cebu.

To note, LINAC is the device used for external beam radiation treatments for patients with cancer.

Construction alone of the six floors and the other two basements, which will serve as parking spaces, cost over P400 million. Purchasing of the equipment has a separate budget.

Its completion has been highly anticipated since it will be the first government-owned cancer center in the entire Visayas that will provide affordable and quality treatment services and will have to prioritize underprivileged patients.

PhilHealth-sponsored program members, including indigents identified by DSWD’s database, are entitled to nobalance billing when they avail of the services at the center.

The operations at the center, on the other hand, may be sustained through reimbursements from the benefit packages of PhilHealth.

The existing services of VSMMC would only cater to cancer patients that need diagnostic procedures.

Since some treatment services are unavailable there, patients that need intensive treatment are referred to private hospitals wherein treatment is costly.

In order to address that need, DOH earlier selected VSMMC as one of the state-run hospitals that will have its own cancer center so as to provide accessible services.

To note, cancer is considered as one of the leading causes of death in Central Visayas.

In its 2014 data, the DOH recorded at least 4,109 cancer cases for that year. —