Chong Hua Hospital Mandaue and Cancer Center will be launched next week. (CDN PHOTO/CHRISTIAN MANINGO)
THE P5-billion Chong Hua Hospital Mandaue and Cancer Center will be launched on Feb. 18.
It is fully operational, with 500 doctors on its staff, although only 165 out of 350 hospital beds are being used initially.
Hospital administrator Dean Decal said the hospital will help cater to the growing number of cancer patients in the Philippines.
It is home to the country’s first Survivorship Cancer Clinic, headed by Dr. Omid Uy Etemadi.
“This clinic will be used for holistic and comprehensive care for cancer patients, including their psychological status, nutrition and emotional status,” he said.
Decal said it is also the only hospital outside Manila accredited as a Level 4 radiation-oncology facility by the Department of Health (DOH).
The hospital is also the first in the Philippines to have a Varian Trilogy, a machine that can perform an entire range of radiotherapies, from two-dimensional radiotherapy to total body irradiation.
With the hospital having complete facilities for diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of cancer, patients in Visayas and Mindanao will no longer have to travel to Manila for therapy, Decal said.
The hospital will also provide other types of medical services, he said.
Decal said the country still lags behind other Southeast Asian countries in terms of hospital bed capacity.
He said Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand has 3.3, 2.5 and two beds respectively for every 1,000 patients while the Philippines can only provide half a bed for every 1,000 patients.
Chong Hua targets medical tourism as a possible market in the future, but it will focus first on providing quality service to the domestic market.
Decal said the cost of treatments in the new Chong Hua hospital will be the same as those in Chong Hua Cebu.