IN TWO months’ time, patients with kidney disease will no longer have to travel all the way to Cebu City to seek treatment as Toledo City will already have its own dialysis center.
The Toledo City Government and Kapsel Medical Inc. signed an agreement for the first dialysis center in Toledo City, Cebu on Feb. 17, 2022, the local government said in a statement.
To be located inside the Toledo City General Hospital (TCGH), the dialysis center will have 12 dialysis machines.
The memorandum of agreement was signed in the office of Mayor Marjorie Perales, who said the development was the fulfillment of the town’s “dream for the past two years.”
Vice Mayor Jay Sigue echoed her sentiments, saying the City Council did not hesitate to approve the agreement.
Dr. Clyde Vincent Bequilla, TCGH chief of hospital, said at one point there were more than 60 patients that kept going to Cebu City two to three times a week just to have dialysis. The new center would now relieve the town’s patients of such travel expenses, he said.
TCGH is located on Magsaysay Hills in Barangay Poblacion.
Bequilla said the center could also benefit patients from the midwest city’s neighboring towns.
The dialysis center is expected to begin operations in April after Kapsel Medical shall have secured all the necessary licenses.
During the signing, City Councilor Dr. James Gaite also praised Bequilla, who has been handling the hospital for three years, saying the hospital finally attained Level 1 accreditation from the Department of Health (DOH) “after all these years.”
The hospital received approval from the DOH for its upgrading into a Level 1 hospital with a 50-bed capacity on Jan. 28, 2021.
On celebrating that milestone, the local government said the highlight of the upgrade was the installation of a blood station and operating rooms made possible through the efforts of Bequilla with the support of Mayor Perales and the city council.
Separately, the local government announced that the Toledo City General Hospital had also recently taken delivery of a CT Scan machine that will enable the hospital to conduct more detailed internal imaging of the body for diagnostic purposes.
The City announced the development also on Feb. 17.