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COVID-19 hampered delivery of services to Pinoy cancer patients, organ transplants —experts


The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the delivery of other vital health services in some institutions in the Philippines, according to experts.

During a hearing conducted by the Committee on Sustainable Development Goals, Innovation and Futures Thinking on Tuesday, the Philippine General Hospital's Cancer Institute bared that the number of its cancer patients who availed of services has decreased in recent months.

"Pre-pandemic we used to look at 300 to 500 patients a day. Now in this pandemic era we are looking at around 100 to 150 patients—still a big one compared to other centers," Dr. Jorge Ignacio, chair of the Cancer Institute said.

"We are actually making a lot of adjustments in these COVID times," he added.

Ignacio said that among the current medical challenges are: to ensure that cancer patients receive ample treatment; to optimize the use of telemedicine; and to encourage a universal referral system.

He further said that community-based registries of cancer cases should be made.

The oncology expert underscored that the mortality rate among cancer patients is high in the Philippines because of late detection. The provision of screening equipment at the health center level would improve this, he added.

'Decreased organ transplants, increased demand for dialysis'

During the same hearing, National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) Executive Director Dr. Rose Marie Liquete said the health facility had to suspend its organ donation and transplantation to limit the ingress and egress of people, in a bid to prevent the possible transmission of COVID-19.

"Of course we have [observed a] decrease in our transplants. Organ donation, definitely, is decreased," Liquete said, noting that they have "backlogs" in surgery.

"With that, we will increase in dialysis because these transplant patients are not transplanted... so they remain in dialysis. Of course, increase in mortality, you can see that," she added.

She noted that through the years, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, kidney transplant has been low in the Philippines.

In 2018, 561 kidney transplants were conducted by the NKTI. The following year, 535 were recorded. The number plunged to just 107 for the period of January to March 2020.

"Although we have resumed last June, barely do we have [transplant] cases because they are still afraid to come to NKTI," Liquete said.

The COVID-19 situation also hampered the training of NKTI's pediatric liver transplant team abroad, she added.

On Monday, the institute announced that its bed capacity for cases of COVID-19 is already in the "danger zone."

"In the past two weeks, that's from June 29 until yesterday, we noted an increase in the confirmed COVID patients in our hospital... so does the number of our health workers who become positive," Liquete said.

The total number of infected frontliners at the NKTI was 145 as of July 14, she added. — BM, GMA News

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