Wednesday, April 9, 2014

250 patients benefit from free surgery

GENERAL SANTOS CITY (19 February 2014) – As many as 250 indigent patients from General Santos City and Sarangani Province with major surgical cases have been able to avail of free operations from the World Surgical Foundation (WSF).

The surgical mission is being conducted at General Santos City Hospital beginning February 17 and would last until the 21st.

Christian Mark Era, an 8-year old boy from Barangay Fatima suffering from hernia, was one of the beneficiaries.  His mother May Era was very thankful after the free procedure to his son.

“I thank the doctors and the people behind the World Surgical Foundation for doing free surgical operation to the needy like us. My son has been suffering from hernia about a year now, we weren’t able to send him for operation because it will cost about P70, 000,” the mother said in an interview.

City Mayor Ronnel Rivera committed his and the local government unit’s full support to the project seeing that health accessibility is one of the areas of focus of his CLEAN GenSan Health Agenda. CLEAN stands for Creating a Livable Environment for All Generals towards Nation-Building.

The mayor added that during the foundation’s visit last year he had already expressed the need of people from GenSan and neighboring towns for free surgical operations, especially those constituents needing major procedures.

Subsequently, a contingent of volunteer surgeons, nurses and staff support led by Dr. Domingo Alvear, president and founder of WSF, and Nancy Cohen, executive director, arrived and started the patients’ screening on February 16.

Eight OR Stations were arranged to support the mission.

Most of the surgeries they’re performing are in the areas of ENT, pediatrics, plastics, urology, maxillofacial and OB/GYN.

Forty cases were successfully completed on the first day alone with Dr. Alvear personally conducting the eight of them.

“So far, the whole operation is going on smoothly. I appreciate everybody’s cooperation especially the local doctors and nurses. The coordination is also good that’s why we were able to start earlier compared to the other missions where we start at nine or ten in the morning,” Alvear said.

WSF has been traveling to the Philippines for over 15 years providing medical aid. After completing this mission, Dr. Alvear will travel to Cebu City to do a third annual WSF Pull-through Mission.

General Santos City Grand Surgical Mission is one of the largest operations of the foundation. (GENSAN INFO OFFICE/Michelle Ann Gonzales)

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