Year 2011 ended with SM Foundation inaugurating the 68th Felicidad T. Sy Wellness Center in Tarlac. Felicidad T. Sy Wellness Centers are sprouting nationwide as centers for the elderly which SM builds for use of senior citizens, centers for children, and hospices for the terminally ill. These facilities are found in Pampanga, Iloilo Lucena, Quezon City and Davao City.
Adding to its cap is SM Foundation’s recently opened Pediatric Hospice and Palliative Center in a special wing of the Lung Center of the Philippines.
The facility,, built through the initiative of SM Foundation, Lung Center of the Philippines and Philippine Cancer society, was inaugurated November 29 last year. It is the first and only government pediatric hospice and palliative care center in the country.
Located at the Lung Center of the Philippines, the center aims to improve the quality of life of child patients and their families facing problems associated with life-threatening illnesses through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification, accurate assessment, and treatment of pain. The center hopes to collaborate and work with other agencies to improve quality of life by advancing hospice and palliative care program, education and research.
The center will be co-managed by the Philippine Cancer Society, through executive director, Dr. Rachel Rosario. SM Foundation will undertake regular maintenance of the facility and update equipment. It will also be enroll led in the Gamot Para sa Kapwa program of SM, and Kapwa Ko, Mahal Ko.
Dr. Sergio Andres, head of the hospice and palliative care center, said medical practitioners, like himself, take care of child patients with advanced and incurable diseases, but the family is greatly involved in the care caring of patients. Which is why the center offers psychosocial sessions to teach families how to cope with the sadness and pain of “termination of life on earth.”
The center is colorfully painted with murals, has a fully equipped playroom with a TV set, DVDs, books, and offers activities for children while waiting for their chemotherapy or other pain-management sessions, hospital rooms for palliative sessions, a doctors’ room, a nurse station and receiving room for parents or family members.
Connie Angeles, SM Foundation executive director for health and medical programs, said the government-attached hospice is the first in the country.
Dr. Anjanette Reyes-De Leon, who heads the pediatric center of the Lung Center, said cancer is a formidable contributor to childhood morality here and abroad. In the Philippines the annual incidence of cancer for children aged 0-14 is 100 per million population — the second highest in the Asian region after Japan.
Former Senator Orly Mercado, now with Kapwa Ko, Mahal Ko, was guest speaker during the hospice-palliative center’s simple turn-over ceremonies. He said children, being resilient, “teach us how to face incurable illnesses — tinuturuan tayo kung papano harapin ang sakit. Hospice care is giving care to those who need care.”