[DR1] Children's Hospital needs more beds

[NewsWhore]

The Robert Reid Cabral Children's Hospital in Santo Domingo needs more beds for its young cancer patients. The hospital only has twelve beds in its Cancer and Hematology Ward and it needs 30. The hospital is currently treating 220 children for cancer. The cost of treatment is beyond the reach of most parents, especially in view of the fact that in the treatment of just 30 patients the cost of chemotherapy exceeds RD$250,000 per month. The people leading the "Friends Against Childhood Cancer Foundation" are in the forefront of the effort to get more beds for the hospital. According to Listin Diario, treatment for leukemia requires an initial cost of RD$50,000, and this is often paid by donors recruited by the foundation. Last year there were 37 new leukemia patients at the hospital. The lack of beds requires cancer patients to be treated on an outpatient basis, which is not right for these children. According to foundation president Alexandra Matos de Purcell, children sometimes have to wait a week for their chemotherapy because of the shortage of space.

Link To Original Article (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#9)