CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—A Singapore-based firm and a Pampanga hospital on Wednesday signed an agreement to establish a cancer treatment and management center in the province.
TE Asia Healthcare Partners (TE Asia) will invest at least P500 million worth of equipment and technology to upgrade the cancer-center facility at the Mother Teresa of Calcutta Medical Center (MTCMC) in this city.
TE Asia has cancer-center facilities in Vietnam, Hong Kong and Indonesia. It is investing for the first time in the country.
The MTCMC’s cancer center is the first state-of-the-art cancer center in Central Luzon.
The parties formalized the partnership with the contract signing at the MTCMC on July 19. TE Asia was led by its CEO Eng Aik Meng, while MTCMC was led by Board Director Vilma Caluag during the signing.
Rhais Gamboa, MTCMC CEO, said the cancer center will be housed in a P150-million four-story building to be built within the next 10 months.
The cancer center will be operational by July next year.
For the equipment alone, TE Asia is infusing at least half a billion pesos, to cater to three branches of cancer treatment and management—chemotherapy, radiotherapy (brackytherapy, tomotherapy and positron emission tomography scan) and surgery.
While MTCMC has already invested in its own tomotherapy center, the partnership will bring in additional equipment such as linear accelerator, a cutting-edge technology for tomotherapy.
Tomotherapy or helical tomotherapy, according to Wikipedia, is a type of radiation therapy in which the radiation is delivered slice-by-slice.
Gamboa said the entry of TE Asia in the Philippine medical industry is “somewhat a vote of confidence to the country’s economy”.
TE Asia was established in 2014 to address the explosive growth in health-care services demand in Asia.
It has investment partnerships in Hong Kong, Indonesia and Vietnam, according to Meng.
Eng said the Philippines has “excessive demand but limited supply of treatment centers for cancer”.
Aside from the funds to be infused for the center, Filipino partners MTCMC and MGHI expect to capitalize on the access to knowledge and technology that the partnership offers.
Gamboa said their group can benchmark TE Asia’s best practices in their other operations in Asia to provide the best health care services for the Filipinos, most especially to Kapampangans.
Vilma Caluag, MTCMC founder and current board of directors member, said the cancer center offers convenient access for residents of Pampanga and even the entire North Luzon.
“Those who are seeking the best treatment for cancer need not suffer the inconvenience of traveling to Metro Manila. We will be glad to serve them here at MTCMC,” Caluag said.