History
The hospital is a district hospital and an oncology service with 43 years of history. What at first was a service consisting of two medical oncologists has become an Oncology Institute (Institut d’Oncologia de la Catalunya Sud: IOCS) with 19 specialists in medical oncology, 11 radiotherapists, a palliative care team, a unit of genetic counselling and a psycho-oncology unit. Today it is the referral centre for oncology in the province of Tarragona, a territory of 800,000 inhabitants, located in southern Catalonia. In October 2010 the team moved to the new Hospital Universitari Sant Joan de Reus, located just outside the city, with a surface that increased by three of the former hospital.
Profile
The oncology service has 30 beds, all of which are single rooms.
The staff is composed of 14 medical oncologists, ten radiotherapists, two specialists in palliative care, 3 specialists in genetic counselling in cancer (belonging to the medical oncology staff) and two psycho-oncologists. The oncology service has 24 offices for outpatient visits, a chemotherapy administration area with the capacity to administer 25 cancer treatments simultaneously and 6 boxes for oncological emergencies (equipped to attend oncological emergencies both in patients undergoing specific oncological treatment and in those who are receiving exclusively palliative treatment). The radiation oncology service has four linear accelerators and a brachytherapy unit. There is an oncologist on call 24 hours with physical presence. Patients may call two phone numbers (the physician and the nurse of the Palliative Care Unit), 8 AM to 5 PM Monday through Friday for any medical consultation, and 24 hours a day to the phone of the oncologist on call, 365 days a year. The psycho-oncology Unit provides psychological support to cancer patients (both hospitalized and outpatients).
Specialities
The Oncology Department is composed of several specialized Units: Lung Cancer, Gastrointestinal Cancer, Breast Cancer, Gynaecological Cancer, Head and Neck Cancer, Urological Cancer, Sarcoma-Melanoma and Onco-Haematology.
The Units/Services of Psycho-oncology, Genetic Counselling, Palliative Care, Radiation Oncology and Medical Oncology act transversally in each of the aforementioned units. Therefore, a patient suffering from cancer in a particular anatomical location, can receive specialized care for all the oncological disciplines.
Palliative and Supportive Care
The palliative care unit of the Institut d’Oncologia de la Catalunya Sud (IOCS), at the University Hospital Sant Joan de Reus, is composed of eight staff: a medical oncologist, two physicians specialized in palliative care, two nurses, two psycho-oncologists and a social worker. All physicians in the area of oncology are responsible for their patients when they are in the terminal phases of cancer. In the treatment of patients with symptoms that are difficult to control, the Palliative Care Unit can take care of the patient or can assist the oncologist in managing them. This will perpetuate the symbiosis between professionals of the different oncologycal disciplines and the Palliative Care Unit. The IOCS and the Palliative Care Unit are coordinated with the Primary Care Medicine (GP) and with the Palliative Domiciliary-supportive Teams.
Additional Contact
Dr. Dulce Rodriguez - E-mail
Last update: July 2022
