Whether the chemo arrives at the patient in a chair in a room where other people are in the same position, and remains there for hours, or whether the time is spent on the sofa at home, with his books and the company of his loved ones. These are two completely different scenarios. The first sequence is the most common today; The second has only been appreciated by some oncology patients, those of the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, who had this home chemotherapy system for a few months. But now, home oncology treatment will be extended to all other public hospitals in Madrid.
This was announced yesterday by the President of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, at the ABC Forum, with CEU as institutional collaborator and Valdecarros Madrid as collaborator. The idea is to humanize care, make life easier for patients and avoid travel, which is sometimes costly or contributes to their physical and mental exhaustion. In addition, the family environment is much more aseptic than the hospital environment, so not moving and not staying for hours in a hospital room reduces the risks for immunocompromised people.
The idea put forward yesterday by the regional president is that the Community of Madrid would extend the home cancer treatment program that already existed to all public hospitals in the region. “We will facilitate care at the home of the patient who requests it,” explained Díaz Ayuso. This plan will allow those affected to receive, for example, chemotherapy in their living room.
The program, which has already been operating at the Gregorio Marañon Hospital for its oncohematology patients since the beginning of this year, will now be extended to the rest of the public hospitals. And its objective is clear: it tries to make “life a little easier and more bearable” for patients, he stressed. However, it will only work in patients who need it, since it is a voluntary program; and who meet the physical conditions and clinical situation necessary to do so.
This is, insist the Ministry of Health, headed by Fátima Matute, a new model of care, which guarantees the same security as in the hospital, but greater comfort and privacy for the user.
As for the technical details of the measure, the healthcare staff will be responsible for making home visits, accompanied if necessary by a doctor. They will have all the necessary equipment, even to face any eventuality arising from the treatment, they indicated to the Ministry of Health. And in addition, the service will be coordinated with the Pharmacy Service, according to the medications prescribed to patients by the heads of Oncology and Home Hospitalization. This service will prepare the compound to be used at the agreed time, and can also be used as a support tool for a treatment monitoring application.
All the details are thought out in this program, so that there are no details that could inconvenience patients. That is why the initiative also includes the monitoring of the analyses to prevent patients from making unnecessary trips for this reason. The regional government recalls that for this type of patients, having to go to the hospital for an analysis can be not only uncomfortable, but sometimes also complicated.
Video calls
There will also be a direct phone number that will also allow you to make video calls with the doctor to ask any questions that may arise during or after treatment.
For some time now, the Ministry of Health has been working on measures that promote the humanization of patient care. In this same sense, in addition to this measure, we are also working on others such as better monitoring of the patient’s analysis, so that different tests can coincide in time, to avoid trips to the hospital.
According to the schedule set by the Ministry of Health, the oncology home care network will be implemented in 50 percent of the region’s public hospitals by next year. In addition, it will be extended to all others throughout 2026.
This means that around 1,250 patients will be able to benefit from this home chemotherapy service in 2026, while in 2025, there could be between 300 and 600 already benefiting from this treatment at home.
The pioneer of home hospitalization is the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, which created a specific unit in 1981, not for oncological treatment but for other conditions. Its example has served as a model for the rest, and there are now more than 130 units in the National Health System. Basically, its mission is to care for patients who require specialized hospital-level care, but in their own home. They have the guarantee of efficiency and safety similar to what they would receive in conventional hospitalization, but they have the comfort of being at home, more comfortably and without breaking the rhythm of family life as much as in a hospitalization.
Since 1995, this unit has opened its portfolio of services to serve all types of patients, both from medical and surgical services. In fact, there was the possibility of being admitted directly to this unit from the emergency department, from outpatient clinics or from primary care.
This home hospitalization saves resources and is particularly well received in the case of minor patients, who, when the clinical situation allows, can be cured of their ailments in their own bed, surrounded by their toys and with their family environment.
