2024-09-14 06:06:54
The City of Health, a large complex of hospitals and specialized centers equipped with high technology, has the “goal” of bridging the “gap that always exists” between public health and the private sector, he said. in an interview with EFE the medical director of that state agency, Jorge Ng Chinkee.
A photo showing the interior of La Ciudad de la Salud hospital, on August 28, 2024 in Panama City, Panama. EFE/Carlos Lemos
The Health City of the Social Security Fund (CSS), located in the capital of Panama and with an investment of over 1,000 million dollars, was launched last January and includes four very difficult hospitals, five companies and four specialized companies.
It has 1,368 beds, 256 intensive care units (ICU), 67 semi-intensive units, 24 anesthesia recovery units, 51 operating rooms for surgeries and 313 medical offices, equipped with technology new generation, as EFE confirmed during the tour for part of the infrastructure.
“This is like an airport,” commented one of the patients who visited Health City, a health system with more than 360,000 square meters of construction, as Ng Chinkee said, and of the fourth level, that is, it took higher cases. Medical complexity.
“We see cancer patients, transplant patients, heart surgery patients, and adults and children, and all kinds of very complex ways, which must be addressed, in such a small country, in a community,” said the medical director.
Innovation and knowledge
The City of Health is “the most modern technology available at this time in terms of health and care,” which includes everything from robots to dispense drugs in the pharmacy to those used for surgical treatments or rehabilitation treatments, explained the medical director.
The facility also has the first oncology hospital of the Social Security Administration, which is equipped with four Elekta brand linear accelerators and another of these machines called unity, which is the only two in Latin America, the location of it “allows At the international level. , the eyes turned to Panama, and it allowed us to show all the benefits of the Health City,” said Ng Chinkee.
Unity is a linear accelerator for radio oncology “with a resonator”, which makes it a “very safe treatment for the patient”, explained the medical director, who demonstrated that the installation of this equipment includes advice on the field of International Atomic Energy Agency.
Closing the gaps
“The idea of the Health City is that the gap that always exists between social security, that is, public health, and private health is getting shorter. “There should be no difference between whether I have money or not, because the Social Security provides first-class care, not even like a private hospital, but more importantly, with the best quality and technology ,” Ng Chinkee said. .
The medical director remembers that “80% of the Panamanian population is insured” by CSS “and that the City of Health has the advantage of giving all this to patients, which means that the majority of the Panamanian population can receive “better treatment. somewhere.”
And this attention is not limited to technical features and infrastructure, but also to the care of the patient so that they feel good and follow, in a company that also has gardens, green areas, air conditioning and equipment in an effort to “mark the difference”, not “cold” and unprofessional hospital.
Stability
Ng Chinkee also spoke about the ongoing plans for Health City to generate its own energy from photovoltaic and wind sources, as well as from water harvesting that takes advantage of the heavy rains in the Central American country.
“We try to make the Health City also have an impact on the environment, because the energy it uses is enough to maintain all the equipment, the ventilators, maintain the ICUs, the operating rooms,” he added.
This article was written under a cooperative agreement with the Social Security Fund.
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