VSMMC acquires new surgery equipment
CEBU, Philippines - The Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center successfully conducted brain tumor operation and spine surgery yesterday using its newly acquired navigational system, BrainLAB Curve.
The VSMMC is the only government hospital in the country to have the equipment, the first in the Visayas and Mindanao and the second in Asia.
The intra-operative image guidance brings brain tumor and spine surgery to a whole new level to plan the safest and most effective path to a tumor or other malformation.
BrainLAB Curve is a significant upgrade that provides major improvement in accuracy that translates into shorter operations, shorter hospital stays and lower treatment costs.
In a press briefing after the surgery, Dr. Roque Paradela, chief of the Professional Medical Department of VSMMC, reported that it only took an hour instead of the usual three hours to conduct the operation.
Dr. Emmanuel Gines, chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine of VSMMC, also said that with the new equipment, their people can now do orthopedics surgery with full safety.
“By this equipment, we can assure that we can do the operation easily, 100 percent accurate and safe,†said Gines who is also the consultant on Spine Section of the Department of Orthopedics of VSMMC.
Gines said that some private hospitals in Metro Cebu already have the equipment but only VSMMC has the latest one.
He said that it is too expensive to avail of the said operation in private hospital but the one at VSMMC can be used at lower cost.
VSMMC Chief, Dr. Gerardo Aquino, said even with limited resources of government hospitals, new equipment can still be acquired either through partnership, installment and revenue sharing scheme which is self liquidating.
“We were able to procure it in a self liquidating manner,†he said.
He also stressed that patients are charged through socialized payment at a lower rate while those who can pay shall subsidize those who cannot pay.
“Bisan pobre ka, you can still avail of this kind of equipment that somebody is subsidizing you,†Aquino added. (FREEMAN)
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