“It’s not right. Formentera’s cancer patients can not be left without face-to-face care,” says Susana Ribas, delegate in the Pitiusas of the Metastatic Cancer Association shortly after reading the news about the suspension of oncology consultations at the island’s hospital after the departure of one of the specialists (the second in a month). “I have put myself in the shoes of one of those patients and I can’t stop crying,” continues Ribas, who just a few minutes ago was talking to Maribel Martinez, president of the Pitiusa Association of Aid to Those Affected by Cancer (Apaac), and Carmen Villena, president of the Pitiusa delegation of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC). “We must seek an immediate solution to this problem of a lack of oncologists.”
Carmen Villena confesses that she felt ill when she found out that the Oncology service was no longer providing consultations on Formentera. At that moment everything that happened to her family years ago, when they lived in Formentera and her son fell ill with leukemia, came to mind: “I have lived it in my own flesh. I know what it is like for a sick person to have to take a boat in bad weather to go to the doctor, if there are any because the port is not closed that day”. Villena asserts that they are “very worried” and trust that Health will find a solution as soon as possible to maintain the weekly Oncology visits to Formentera. “We cannot be like this,” she adds, referring both to the situation in which the patients of Formentera are left in the cold and to the lack of specialists in the Can Misses service. Villena insists on the need to “offer incentives” to encourage doctors to come to work in the Pitiusas.
Outrage for cancer patients
“I am very angry. I’m outraged. I’m even angry with myself and I’m not sure why. You are trying to help people who are going through a process as difficult as cancer and you see that those who have to ensure that they are cared for are distanced and talk about the future and not the current reality, “says Maribel Martinez, who yesterday, on behalf of the island’s cancer associations requested an “urgent meeting” with the manager of the Pitiusa Health Department, Carmen Santos. “A few months have passed and nothing has changed. Well, actually, it’s worse,” says the president of Apaac, who believes that when cancer patients are “desperate” the Administration can not maintain “that zen speech, airy, which says that when the residents finish they will be offered a place here.” “Everything is up in the air, we do not know what is going to happen, when doctors will be incorporated,” continues Martinez, for whom it is “inconceivable” that patients from Formentera are forced to travel to Ibiza for consultations.
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