When this professional from Belumbría arrived at the Liga Contra el Cáncer in Risaralda at the age of 30, she managed to turn it into a leading institution in the field of oncological medicine that now seeks to venture into the treatment of other pathologies
Oscar Osorio Ospina
Cancer has been present in the 59 years of the life of María Teresa Romero Henao as a constant, from those distant times when a sister of hers died from this pathology to the present time and her recent personal fight against this disease. This professional born in Belén de Umbría, graduated in Industrial Economics and specialized in Management, began her professional career at the Club Campestre de Pereira and joined the Liga Contra el Cáncer de Risaralda on July 1, 1993, when this institution was practically in operation. diapers and has managed to make it number one in the country. This is her story.
How did you get involved with the League Against Cancer?
I worked at the Club Campestre de Pereira and I got bored, I started looking for work, I didn’t like the positions that were available to me and a friend at the Club, Amparito Ángel de Rivera, told me: look, there is a position in the League Against Cancer, I don’t know if it will be for you because it is a very different position from here and it is a small company. I said: I am going to escape, the truth is that, because I earned three times what I came to earn in the League, but I was so eager to change that I said: I go, I get oxygen and breath and I could do it because I lived in my house with my dad and my mom.
What was the League Against Cancer back then?
It was a small house in the 4th race with more or less 12 employees, where the main entrance is today. At that time there was the taking and reading of cytology, Dr. Fabio Vallejo was a volunteer and provided his services free of charge, we had Gynecology and General Medicine. Today we are more than 500 employees.
What is this institution today?
We are an IPS that has preserved its essence, which is why it was founded by Bernardo Ángel Marulanda and a group of people who are still alive, such as María Cristina Cuartas de Gaviria, who to this day is still an active volunteer and member of the Board of Directors and the Council. Superior. It is an institution that has been strengthened and that with nails, tenacity and altruism, but with honesty and a lot of tenacity we have moved forward thanks to a group of volunteers, a Board of Directors and a Council that breathe League blood and where we try to make the that it arrives breathe League blood to be able to have an institution that belongs to the community and that has grown a lot. We have not grown because we wanted to, but because we listened to the needs, because where there is a health need and where there is a shortcoming, the League comes within its possibilities -which are increasingly broad- to solve this problem.
How many offices do you currently have?
We have the headquarters of the fourth race, another in the sixth race, the one in Cartago that inaugurated last Thursday, the Dermatological Unit, the Oncology Center and the administrative headquarters in the Central Station Shopping Center.
What critical episodes have you experienced throughout this history?
We have had many critical moments, for example, when oncological IPS have arrived in the city, which in one way or another affects the economic part and the issue of prices -I don’t know how they manage to play with that part-, also the issue of the portfolio that has been difficult: we came to have a portfolio before the pandemic, of more than 365 days, for $20,000 million. This is a very strong issue, you have to start managing it, get on a plane, talk to the presidents of the EPS, ask for help, but we have never stopped services for patients. Going from being a small IPS to a large IPS, I say that growing hurts and hurts a lot, starting with having a payroll that goes from a few million to one of $1,000 million, that’s growth. But we have done it with the certainty that the social balance works and thank God, I am a great believer, the results are given to us. And last year we served an average of 1,250 people a day.
What are the future plans?
We are going to expand to be multipathological, not because we want to, but because when the patient comes to the League many times he begins to complicate with other pathologies or has some kind of reaction at unusual times, he goes to an emergency room at clinics that they can be very good but they don’t know the treatment that person is having. There we should talk about being multidisciplinary, so that the oncologist can talk to the cardiologist or the pulmonologist, so by obligation we have to be multipathological to be able to keep the patient focused and give him an integrated treatment. What we need is a clinic like the one we are dreaming of
What exactly are they dreaming of?
We dream of a well-located clinic with more or less 120 to 150 beds, which will be in the Cancer Center and will have emergencies, first aid, all the technical part that anyone may need, but also that we never leave that human part and the good treatment that is what identifies us. The idea is that the patient does not move from there and that what he needs we do.
What characteristics will this clinic have?
It will be a clinic with all the technology, with an ICU that we have here in the fourth race with 11 beds between intermediate care and critical care and 39 hospital beds, it is a complex hospital because Oncology is complex since oncology begins to affect many parts of the person , in most cases we celebrate life, but after some strong treatments. In addition, we need to be regional, this topic includes the clinical laboratory and the immunohistochemical service that does not exist in the Coffee Region. When the patient has a pathology, many times he needs to know the last name of this pathology, it is necessary to know further and we have to send the immunohistochemistry to Cali or Medellín.
What role does the office recently opened in Cartago play in this scenario?
We need to be regional, that’s why we are opening Cartago, a place that was spectacular for us in Santiago Plaza, with the required parking spaces, it is very nice and very pretty. Soon they will give us a mobile unit that is going to have a mammograph equal to or better than the one in the fourth race, an ultrasound scanner and a colposcope to be able to do early diagnostic tests, which was worth approximately $2.5 billion and we are still looking for donors for that unit that is going to to travel the department and the North of the Valley, I dream of going with her to Chocó to be able to make diagnoses and to be able to celebrate life.
Maria Teresa Romero Henao
Cancer, in its own flesh
It was a very strong issue, but I never thought I was going to die, never, never… Every year I had my exams, the ultrasound, the mammogram, I felt like a little ball in December and I said: this is not mine so strange. The day I had the appointment in the same League I did not go, I forgot… so I scheduled myself for a Wednesday and I think the result was very surprising, but very timely. This shows that, by taking exams, by educating yourself and by reviewing timely exams, we celebrate life. It was a very painful issue because we started thinking it was an oral treatment, I switched to intravenous chemotherapy and I lost all my hair, it didn’t seem so difficult. I think it was a very painful subject, but very beautiful, because you reevaluate and change many things in your life. The important thing about these processes is to change the chip, I think that’s what it’s all about. See, it’s going to sound very contradictory to you, but it’s even a blessing because one begins to value many things that they didn’t value before.
And it reaffirms that a diagnosis in time…
… save life. Breast and prostate exams, cytology, also a good diagnosis, knowing our body, knowing how it works and then if you no longer urinate or defecate normally, have blood in your stools, are alerts that the body gives and there are to listen to them