Friday, March 29

The Mérida Hospital activates the second linear accelerator for cancer treatments


José María Vergeles, in the room of the new linear accelerator. / TODAY

The new device is part of the donation program made by the Amancio Ortega Foundation

Antonio Gilgado

The Mérida Hospital has released its second linear accelerator for cancer treatment.

The Minister of Health and Social Services, José María Vergeles, visited this morning the room where the new device is located, one of the four donated to the region by the Amancio Ortega Foundation. It was activated last week and will cover not only the Mérida Health Area but also that of Don Benito, according to the SES.

Vergeles has clarified that the new accelerator will coexist with the one that has been operating up to now in the Hospital, which is why it has been necessary to build a second bunker in which to house the new one.

As the counselor clarified, it is a much more advanced device, but it can perfectly coexist with the one that already worked in the Hospital.

The new device makes it possible to “focus the radiation very well” and use as little radiation as possible, so that if the tumor is located in a very sensitive area and the surrounding tissues and organs need to receive less radiotherapy, it will be the one indicated precisely by that capacity for precision.

Another novelty is that it allows, at the same time that it is being treated, to carry out a volumetric study of the area in which it acts. Know where the radiation must be applied at all times so that the treatment is more effective. This is possible because it incorporates devices that work as if it were a CT scan and in this way see the lesions throughout the radiotherapy treatment.

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These more advanced options, Vergeles pointed out, will prevent patients from the Don Benito-Villanueva Health Area from having to travel to Badajoz for these more specific treatments because they will already be able to receive them in Mérida.

This is the third linear accelerator of the four financed by the Amancio Ortega Foundation that is launched, to which a fourth will be added in Plasencia, where “the work that was abandoned on the second bunker has just been carried out” to host it.

Apart from this donation, he explained that under the High Technology Equipment Investment Plan (INVEAT), promoted by the Ministry of Health, within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, the start-up of the region of two more accelerators.

One of them will be installed in the twin bunker that was built in the University Hospital of Cáceres and the other will complete coverage in the Badajoz Health Area.

In addition, Vergeles explained, it will be studied, “when we have clearer ideas in relation to the hospital and surgical treatment module at the Don Benito-Villanueva Hospital”, if this center also requires a linear accelerator.

The Extremadura Health Service (SES) will also be “very aware” of the planning of the proton therapy strategy – a radiotherapy technique – in Spain to have a device of this nature “in the future”.

“It will always be once the indications of these devices have been expanded and we are clear that Extremadura can have the sufficient learning curve because handling one of these devices requires very important training,” said the second vice president of the Board.

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On the other hand, to questions from the media regarding the lack of oncologists in Extremadura health areas, Vergeles has pointed out that it is a situation that affects all of Spain and in which the SES is working “in the short, medium and long” term to try to fix it.

In this sense, he has indicated that he is trying to get residents who do the specialty in Extremadura to stay in the region, in addition to trying to attract specialists.

As measures in the medium and long term, he has pointed out that specialized health training places are being increased and has advocated that the MIR system become “a kind of opposition to be part of the statutory SES” or another regional service of Health.


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