Cebu Doc pours P20B for specialized clinics

The Cebu Doctors' University Hospital has invested P20 million to open two one-stop-shop clinical centers for specialized markets, the Center for Cancer, and Center for Women.

This is to capture the growing number of patients or clientele seeking for effective cancer treatment, and the doubling growth of women affected by the killer-disease Breast Cancer.

"There is a big clamor especially for women for an effective early diagnosis of breast cancer," said Noime Asay-Uy a medical oncologist.

Uy, who is also the chairperson for Population Based Tumor Registry in Metro Cebu, said that based on statistics, the number of women affected by Breast Cancer problem has increased significantly in Cebu, from reported cases of average 800 annually in 1993 to 1998, to an average of 2,000 cases from 1998 to 2002.

CDUH, which is the biggest hospital chain in Southern Philippines, has invested in this kind of specialized service for women and cancer patients due to the increasing number of cases that are now being reported.

Besides, this is also to provide world-competent service to the Cebuano residents, as well as the entire Visayas and Mindanao market.

"The original intent is to put together a friendly atmosphere for patients to be treated. That all the protocols needed, will be at one area only," said CDUH administrator Oscar Tuazon.

These new additions, complete with modern and state-of-the-art equipment and machines, are put in place to address the growing needs of patrons and patients, and these facilities are run by the best doctors and specialists in their fields, Tuazon added.

Pediatric hematologist, and oncologist Jose Antonio S. Quitevis said that CDUH is also positioning to partner with agencies in other countries to attract the medical tourists.

Although, the multi-million investment to provide the two centers for specialized markets is originally for the Filipinos, Quitevis said acquiring the world's top of the line equipment is one of the tools to attract foreigners seeking medical attention in other countries, like the Philippines.

"We are [also] looking at the huge medical tourism market. We are planning to link up with agencies abroad to bring in medical tourists to Cebu," Quitevis said.

However, he said there is no concrete plan yet being formulated yet by the Larrazabal-owned hospital chain company.

In an earlier interview with Cebu Doctors Hospital Inc., chairman Potenciano Larrazabal, Jr., he said that the company has an ongoing plan to build facilities that would geared towards accommodating the multi-million-dollar medical tourism market in Cebu.

Larrazabal said that the company has started to explore around the world in a benchmarking travel especially in Thailand to see the facilities that attracted the medical tourism in that country.

Reports said that the Medical Tourism is the next phenomenon here in the Philippines, next to call centers.

In Thailand, it earned around $280 million form treating 308,000 foreign patients. India on the other hand expects to earn at least $ 1 billion from healthcare tourism by 2012.

"Eventually we will go into that direction [establishing an integrated healthcare facility], we already have good medical facilities, what we don't have is an integrated facility that would specifically address the need of the foreign retirees," Larazabal said.

In the last three years, Larrazabal's Cebu Doctors Hospital has invested about P800 million to create a network of hospital facilities in Metro Cebu, including the North General Hospital, the South General Hospital, and its support facility the establishment of Cebu Doctors University.

Larrazabal strongly believes that the future is into healthcare sector, as people are becoming health conscious, while aging population around the world are looking for good sites for retirement, at the same time availing of good healthcare facilities and services.