MactanDoc to offer medical residency programs

Dr. Potenciano “Yong” Larrazabal III

RESIDENCY training for doctors and more employment opportunities are expected at the Mactan Doctors’ Hospital as it expands with their new Medical Arts building this year.

All five departments of MactanDoc have been given orders to organize residency training programs to help new doctors become specialists in their chosen fields. These five departments are internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and family medicine.

According to Dr. Potenciano “Yong” Larrazabal III, president and chairman of the CebuDoc Group of Hospitals, they hoped to also retain these doctors after their residency program.

“We want to create training programs so our own doctors will end up teaching the younger ones. They will produce graduates who will be forever grateful to them for being their mentors. Also, 70 to 80 percent of these graduates may end up practicing here in Mactan and serve their fellowmen,” he said in a press conference last Saturday.

Officials of the CebuDoc Group of Hospitals broke ground for their new Medical Arts building, which is expected to be completed in six months, last Saturday.

The Medical Arts building is the first of three phases of expansion of MactanDoc, which costs around P200 million. The second and third phases will be done in the next 12 to 14 months after completion of the first phase.

Employment opportunities

Part of the expansion is to make MactanDoc into a 300-bed hospital from the current 160 beds.

Dr. Oscar Tusaon, CebuDoc Group’s corporate administrator and board member, said the additional 140 hospital beds would also mean more employment for Mactan residents and Cebuanos in general.

He said the Department of Health (DOH) requires at least five nurses for every patient, so having more beds would also mean they would need more nurses. Aside from nurses, MactanDoc will also hire other personnel with its expansion.

For his part, Larrazabal said the need to expand MactanDoc was brought about by the growing population of Mactan Island.

“More people are working here and more families are raised here, more subdivisions are developed here, the companies in MEPZ (Mactan Export Processing Zone) have also doubled in numbers. The people who work here, they bring along their families,” he said.

He added that CebuDoc Group’s vision is for Mactan residents to longer have to cross to mainland Cebu in order to get medical treatment, by making services available at MactanDoc.

After MactanDoc, Larrazabal said they will also be undertaking several expansion activities for its other hospitals within Cebu and in other provinces.

Other expansion plans

At least P1 billion has been set aside by the group for its expansion projects to be undertaken within the next five years.

For the Cebu Doctors University Hospital in Cebu City, the group will be constructing a new building attached to the main one. This will accommodate more private rooms and increase the hospital’s bed capacity to 400 from the current 300 beds.

For the South General Hospital (SouthGen) in Naga City, they will also be developing a Trauma Center in partnership with the Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation (ERUF). It will be the first trauma center outside of Metro Manila.

For the North General Hospital (NorthGen) in Barangay Talamban, Cebu City, the group is also set to launch a Mother and Child Center, which will provide one of the country’s cheapest maternity packages, they said.