Special appeal to patron cum laude MVP

When Manny V. Pangilinan turned down, at the last minute, an overwhelming appeal for him to run for president of the Philippine Olympic Committee, the respected tycoon readily explained he was “not turning my back at all on Philippine sports.

“I remain committed to support it, our MVP Sports Foundation will continue extending time and resources to its orderly development,” he assured.

Knowing Mr. Pangilinan, it goes without saying he’ll always be there not for the athletes alone, but for all his countrymen as well.

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Sorry for this intrusion, but it was MVP who came to mind when I received this letter from a crusading physician, the main parts of which I’m humbly relaying to Mr. Pangilinan through this column:

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In my desire to help the indigent patients, I have learned the art of doing big surgeries under local and peripheral nerve anesthesia.

I have been doing surgical missions since 1985. Initially it was four to six times a year. Then on Sept. 17, 2007, with the help of the Rotary Club of San Francisco del Monte, RI District 3780, my dream of putting up an “Operating Room on Wheels” came into being. Since then we have been doing surgical missions in Luzon and Visayas at least once a month. With the success of these missions, we realized the need to increase the number of trips to serve more people; hence starting 2012 we made it twice a month.

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Three months ago, we tested the waters and we conducted missions every week.

The last month was quite hectic because the schedule included two out-of-town surgical missions—Cauayan, Isabela and Nueva Ecija—which were held one after the other.

I just can’t say no to the many charity missions that I receive. So far, we have conducted more than 50 surgical missions with thousands of indigent patients benefiting from it.

Despite limited resources, we plan to expand it to a mobile mini-hospital. This is the start of the mobile health care system which I have dreamed of.

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The idea is likened to this:

A medical center is like is a naval base. You have all the medical-surgical specialists, nurses, other health professionals as well as the diagnostic-treatment facilities, medications and supplies. However, for a poor country like ours, it is not practical to put up medical centers all over. The government simply has no budget for that and, even if it can put up the structure, the maintenance will be very costly and difficult to bring in a complete lineup of doctors of different specialties.

With this kind of situation that we have, the “Hospital on Wheels” can fill up the vacuum or help reduce the inadequacy. The Hospital on Wheels (and in addition later, the “Floating Hospital”) will be likened to an aircraft carrier.

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Aside from having an operating room, the mobile mini-hospital will have specialty clinics, diagnostics and pharmacy.

The mobile health care system later on can expand and have mobile wound care, mobile endoscopy, mobile hemodialysis, etc.

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With the calamities, there is a strong need for hospital on wheels that will go and serve the affected areas. The Philippines is made up of 7,100 islands with thousands of villages along and near the coastal areas. Most of these villages do not have or lack medical care and health-care facilities. The Floating Hospital can serve these areas.

Since doctors of different specialties will be in the forefront of this program, we will be able to bring these specialist doctors to the far-flung and underserved areas of our country. We will also be able to employ many nurses. Currently, we have more than 200,000 nurses that are unemployed!

Thank you very much for whatever assistance you could extend.

Dr. Jim Sanchez

General Surgery

Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery

e-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.jimsanchezmd.com

Mobile phone: +63918-937-7415