St. Luke’s hospital expands care for indigents
The ward’s patients will be cared for regardless of their illness, including cancer and kidney failure.
TREATMENT for the ‘poorest of the poor’ patient from anywhere in the country will be free at the Evelyn D. Ang/Daña Charity Ward of St. Luke’s Medical Center.
PHOTOGRAPH courtesy of SLMC
With its world-class healthcare equipment, service and staff, St. Luke’s Medical Center (SLMC) is considered a very expensive private hospital in Metro Manila. Despite that impression, it has been serving indigent patients, according to SLMC president and CEO Dennis Serrano. In fact, the hospital had just expanded its capability to give care to a greater number of poor patients with the opening of the Evelyn D. Ang/Daña Charity Ward at its Quezon City facility.
“It will be a 40-bed facility and hopefully we’ll be able to serve hundreds of patients every year,” said Serrano during its inauguration on 24 November.
SLMC classifies social services patients from A to D according to their capacity to pay.
“The A are the ones who can afford a little bit and might be able to pay a little bit, so we will shoulder a certain percentage of their expense. For B, (we will shoulder) a bigger percentage (of the medical expenses). C, an even bigger percentage. When you get to D, everything would be paid for (by SLMC),” Serrano explained.
Poor patients will be cared for regardless of their illness, including cancer and kidney failure, and regardless of the cost, he added. Donors will take care of expenses with the doctors and nurses also volunteering to serve at no charge.
Rooms in the ward are a mixed of single and multiple occupancy as there are patients with infectious disease and need to be isolated, or immuno-compromised ones who need not be exposed to other patients, Serrano said.
It is not only the poor from Metro Manila who will be accommodated at the new ward.
“We have already made arrangements so that LGUs (local government units) can contact our social services systems or our social service arm, and they can nominate or they can send patients here. One of our partners is Bantay Bata 163, so they will also be sending us patients,” according to Serrano.
The Evelyn D. Ang/Daña Charity Ward is named after the late wife of major donor Philip Ang. His niece and president of the Evelyn D. Ang Scholarships and Charities Inc., Carmina Ong Ang, said Mrs. Ang ran a foundation supporting cancer patients who could not afford treatment, organized feeding programs for children, brought medicines to families in need, and supported relief efforts during disasters, without expecting anything in return.
Through the ward, her legacy of generosity will live on, said Ang.