The President of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, gave the order to start the construction of the new building for the National Oncology Institute (ION), which will be located in the City of Health. This modern infrastructure, long-awaited by the Panamanian population, will strengthen the comprehensive and dignified care for cancer patients through specialized services and state-of-the-art technology. The new ION is part of President Mulino's strategic vision to modernize, expedite, and humanize health services in the country, with the recovery of hospitals and other health facilities whose construction had been paralyzed during the last two administrations. The project is also framed within the agreement between the Ministry of Health (Minsa) and the Social Security Fund (CSS), aimed at optimizing the services of the City of Health and improving the quality of care under an integrated public health services model. “Thirteen years of unfulfilled promises; impressive projects on paper, but nothing in reality. In this country, there were resources for parties and the waste of public resources, but not for cancer patients,” explained Mulino. “Just as in several sectors of the State, in the oncological sector we also had to put order, since we had a National Oncology Institute with the best professionals, but overwhelmed and with limited care due to the existing conditions,” he reiterated. The contract awarded to the company Riga Services will have an investment of B/. 72 million and an execution period of 26 months. In total, the institute provided care to 24,294 patients, including new and follow-up cases. The president also requested the construction company to reduce the time to 22 months to inaugurate the project in October 2027. The objective is to meet the need to expand and modernize the installed capacity of the ION.
