Forty-five people who needed to undergo various forms of surgery benefitted from the surgery for-a-cause led by the Gonzalo and Charity Ong Foundation and partners.
The surgical mission began on March 21 and will continue until after the Holy Week.
The patients, all residents of the Cordillera, are mostly those do not have enough finances to pay for the surgery and other incidental expenses such as hospital admission fee and medicines.
The average cost of these major surgeries, which include the professional fee of doctors, is between P30,000 to P80,000 excluding incidental expenses.
The Gonzalo and Charity Ong Foundation shouldered all the expenses.
Surgeries conducted include mastectomy (for breast cancer), thyroidectomy (for thyroid cancer), parotidectomy (for parotid tumor), cholesystectomy (for gall bladder stones), mesh hernioplasty (for inguinal hernia), orchidopexy (for undescended testis), and excision for benign breast tumors and lipomas and soft tissue tumors.
The surgical mission conducted this year is the second by the Gonzalo and Charity Ong Foundation after the mission was successfully held in 2019.
Dr. Sherry Ong-Cunanan, daughter of Gonzalo and Charity, has spearheaded the activity in cooperation with the Saint Louis University Hospital Sacred Heart Medical Center (SLUSHMC), the Cordillera chapter of the Philippine College of Surgeons, and the SLUSHMC departments of surgery, eye-ear-nose-throat, obstetrics and gynecology, and anesthesia. – Rimaliza A. Opiña
April 26, 2024
