OPINION: A cancer patient bypassing others in need

The President of the Republic –a patient at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, United States– knows what a disease that, when well cared for, can keep patients out of danger or lead them to death if they do not receive adequate care or treatment. Not all Panamanians have the privilege of receiving first-world care, but at least they deserve to be treated with dignity. The only public institute specialized in cancer in Panama – read well, the only one – is about to collapse: it does not have medicines, not even for patients with metastases, nor can it treat them all, for which reason it has begun to send them home; neither does it have enough budget to operate all year round. Even the construction of a new headquarters has been postponed multiple times. But not even out of empathy, has the ruler done something for those patients. Instead, he has poured hundreds of millions into “parallel decentralization” so that bad-ass, good-for-nothing officials seek re-election. There are people dying and families suffering, while they – drunk with power – throw coins at the Oncologist, but they waste millions that can save hundreds of lives. How do their consciences let them sleep every night?  — LA PRENSA, June 15.