BAGUIO CITY: The Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC) and the Apollo Hospital in New Delhi, India are strengthening their partnership for the setting up of a liver transplant center that can provide service for patients.
Speaking at the launch of the first regional support fora on Tuesday, BGHMC director Dr. Ricardo Runez said this would pave the way for the availability of more surgical procedures in the region.
This means liver disease patients do not have to go to Metro Manila or abroad to seek treatment.
He said they hope to have a state-of-the-art facility that will attend to patients who currently have to travel for their transplant needs.
The doctor also said the initial plan is to cater to children and move on to attending to adult patients.
“Hopefully, in two to three years, we will be here again for the formal opening of the center,” he said.
The doctor said the plan to have the liver transplant center was conceptualized after realizing that several patients suffering from liver disease are prompted to spend more to avail of the services outside the city or even the country.
Dr. Judy Lyn Vitug, pediatric gastro-entorologist for north Luzon who is representing BGHMC, in an interview on the sidelines of the program said “for the past 10 years, we have been handling patients, regularly attending to them but not all are successful.”
She said there are multi-disciplinary doctors in the BGHMC who help raise funds for liver transplants even abroad.
“Right now we are establishing the center so that we can have a liver center at BGHMC and we hope and pray na magiging feasible po sa atin (that this is feasible to us) and that the partnership will be sustainable,” Vitug said.
Included in the partnership is the training of doctors to handle and perform liver transplant surgery at BGHMC.
She said they have at least 15 successful kidney transplant patients, most of whom are pediatric patients.
Dr. Germana Emerita Gregorio, a pediatric hepatologist and gastroenterologist at the University of the Philippines, Manila in a briefing during the event said at least 10 to 15 percent of the liver disease patients belong to the pediatric age group.
She said that as early as the 1980s, liver transplants had been conducted with many of them successful.
Gregorio also said that from 2001 to 2021, there were 172 successful transplants among Filipinos with liver disease. Of the number, 122 were done in two hospitals in India– Indraprastha Apollo Hospital and the Max Super Specialty hospital
Source: Philippines News Agency
