Tommy lays out plans for SRP cancer center

CEBU, Philippines – Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña went to Manila yesterday to lay out plans to have the MD Anderson Cancer Center open a branch at the South Road Properties.

The said plans, he said, will be presented to officials of MD Anderson, University of Texas, Houston, when he will undergo a checkup next week.

Osmeña said he met with “hospital king” Manny Pangilinan for a possible joint undertaking to realize the MD Anderson plan at the SRP.

“The meeting went on very well. It was exploratory. As suggested they will meet with Filinvest for a possible joint effort at the SRP,” Osmeña said.

In earlier interviews he said the hospital will have to be built in the 50.6-hectare area of Filinvest Land Inc. who will also build the building.

Another player needed is someone who could supply and organize the hospital which is the expertise of Pangilinan.

If things go as planned, operations and manpower will be filled in by MD Anderson.

Osmeña said, MD Anderson can’t put up a branch outside Texas as it is state-owned and so it was necessary for him to organize the players jointly.

Osmeña had his treatment and surgery for urinary bladder cancer at the said center which is considered as the best cancer center in the world.

Having MD Anderson at SRP has the Middle East, Australia and the whole Asia as a market since it is nearer than their hospital in Houston.

“Desperate people, those who wanted to live and get cured will go to MD Anderson, there was even one who will fly in and fly out from Hong Kong to Houston for treatment,” he said.

The hospital earns around $1,000 a day for the stay alone, exclusive of the chemotherapy and other treatment fees.

He said there was also a day in which the center earned $6.5 million for chemotherapy.

It is also preferable to have the center within the 50.6 hectare area of the FLI project considering that the patients will have to rent apartments and condominiums.

The patient’s relatives and friends will also be accommodated by the units that will be built soon.

Pangilinan is the president of SMART and Philippine Long Distance Company is in a hospital-buying-and-investing spree in Visayas and Mindanao.

He heads Metro Pacific Investment Corporation and owns leading hospitals such as Makati Medical Center. – Ferliza C. Contratista/BRP (THE FREEMAN)