Doctors and neighborhood associations They ask that the implantation of a radiotherapy unit in Teruel be expedited for the treatment of cancer patients, who now they must do daily –sometimes for two or three weeks– 340 kilometers between roundtrip to receive this therapy in the Aragonese capital. The announcement that the San Jorge de Huesca hospital will incorporate this benefit before September 2023 has caused astonishment in some sectors of the population, which highlight that the capital of Huesca is much closer to Zaragoza and, therefore, the displacement of patients it is less painful.
“We are very happy for Huesca, but we also have patients who need radiotherapy and there are some who prefer to do without the treatment rather than having to make the tiring trip from Teruel to Zaragoza“, denounces the president of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) in Teruel, Joaquín Larramendi.
The AECC will propose to the Department of Health of the Aragonese Government install a linear accelerator in the area near the San José socio-sanitary center, since the planned solution of implanting it in the future hospital being built in El Planizar could mean a delay of several years still.
An alternative proposed by the entity that fights against cancer is to use “one of the many places that already exist in the city, in which the necessary bunker could be built to isolate the accelerator without major problems.” “We will continue fighting; the hospital works are slow and it will take 6 or 7 years to see them finished, we are not satisfied“said Larramendi.
The president of the College of Physicians of Teruel, Ismael Sanchez, also regrets that the construction of the new hospital “it is very late” and defends that the province should be able to offer radiotherapy, “because Zaragoza is far away and we must bring the service closer to the citizen and not vice versa “.
For his part, the president of the Staff Board of the Obispo Polanco hospital, Jesús Martínez-Burgui, demands “a radiotherapy unit in conditions for Teruel”. Although he is in favor of this service being provided in the general hospital, he admits that the El Planizar center “will take at least 5 years” and affirms that “In this life, when you want to solve problems, they are solved.”
The president of the Teruel Neighborhood Federation, Pepe Polo, claims that the new hospital can offer radiotherapy “the day after its inauguration.” “They cannot open the center and come to us with that they still have to buy the machine,” says Polo, who adds that, when deciding to install the linear accelerator in the future hospital center, “The DGA played to delay it.” Polo recalled that the Teruel society mobilized to obtain the benefit collecting 36,000 signatures.
From the Department of Health they explain that the linear accelerator of Huesca has been bought with European funds since it is possible to fulfill the indispensable condition that it be installed in September 2023, something impossible in the case of Teruel, because the new hospital will not be ready for those dates. Although the term of the works ends in 2023, the equipment will still be missing.
The MIR generation avoids Teruel
The absence of a radiotherapy unit is not the only problem in Teruel health. Finding doctors willing to work in the province is the other pending issue and it does not seem that it will be an easy task to pass it. This is highlighted in a report carried out by the Study Center of the Medical Union of Granada, according to which MIR doctors do not usually choose Teruel to train as specialists, the first step to staying to exercise.
The work collects that no doctor among the 4,000 with the best marks in this year’s MIR exam chose a place in Teruel, a problem that is even more pronounced in Ceuta and Melilla, where the future specialists who select this territory are located from the 5,000th place.
The study coordinator, Vincent Matas, explains that if the MIRs shy away from Teruel it is because it is the province “with fewer medical specialties” and because they do not include some of those preferred by future professionals, such as plastic and oral and maxillofacial surgery. The remoteness with large urban centers and the lack of a Faculty of Medicine are other circumstances that make Teruel not figure among the preferences of MIR doctors.
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