Envivo, a dialysis clinic dedicated to making expert healthcare accessible to all, at Ipil-Ipil Street, Brgy. Villamonte, Bacolod, was blessed and inaugurated on Wednesday, Nov. 12.
“Our mission is simple but meaningful: To provide quality, accessible dialysis care in a space that was designed with the patient’s comfort and safety in mind,” Dr. Carissa Yanson Dumancas, owner of the clinic, said.
Carissa, who obtained her medical degree from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) with Latin honors, did her residency in New York and completed her nephrology training at Mayo Clinic.
She is the daughter of Charles and Ginnette Dumancas.
It was her mother who convinced her to switch gears from cardiology to nephrology, Carissa said.
“She kept on telling me stories of patients waiting outside, waiting in line, even past 8 p.m. just to be dialyzed,” Carissa said.
Carissa also said that it was her father, Charles Dumancas, who pushed her to apply to Mayo Clinic, the No. 1 hospital in America, where she was accepted.
She noted that there is a shortage of dialysis clinics in Bacolod and the entire province.
The Envivo clinic will have 30 dialysis machines that will be able to accommodate 90 patients a day.
They already have 60 preregistered patients and are just waiting for their PhilHealth accreditation that is expected anytime this week.
Patients with PhilHealth coverage will be able to avail of the clinic’s dialysis services for free.
Ginnette Dumancas said ever since her daughter was small her dream was to be a doctor so she could help others.
When Carissa graduated from medical school at UST her parents asked her what she wanted as a gift for herself, and she asked them to instead donate an anesthesia machine to the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital.
Ginnette said she prayed hard that her daughter would return to the Philippine so she could serve the people of Bacolod and Negros and she is so happy that she did.
She said her daughter also plans on setting up dialysis clinics in other parts of the province to make them more accessible to the sick.
Ginnette said her mother Olivia V. Yanson, who is a nurse, was a great influence on Carissa.
She instilled in Carissa the need to help others, Ginnette said.
Olivia Yanson said she is ready to help the poor who come to the clinic.
“In the past I was poor, now that I am rich I will help the poor,” she said.
“I taught my granddaughter to help poor that is why she built this beautiful building,” Olivia said.
Olivia also asked her granddaughter to put a garden and a koi pond at the clinic that was inaugurated Wednesday.
Carissa thanked her grandmother for her generosity and said she has kept her promise to her grandfather, the late Ricardo Yanson, to come back from the United States after her training to help the people of Negros.
Carissa is married to Daniel Alvarez, the clinic’s head of engineering and maintenance, whom she described as the “wind beneath my wings”.
Christopher Atwater, a specialist from the United States, helped Envivo set up its dialysis units to ensure that they are of international standards.
Maintaining international standards and providing quality dialysis will help patients feel so much better, Atwater said.*