The President Luis Arce Catacora inaugurated this Sunday the Center for Nuclear Medicine and Radiotherapy in the city of El Alto and announced the construction of another with similar characteristics in the department of Santa Cruz.
“This center is part of a network that is being built in the country because it will have its replica in Santa Cruz, and it also has the best technology (in health) among all the South American countries,” said the president.
During his speech, Arce recalled that he had to leave the country in 2017 to treat cancer that was detected in his kidneys.
“With this (nuclear medicine) center There will no longer be a need for us to go to Brazil, Argentina, Chile or other countries to undergo (cancer) treatments. And they have had to spend many years to be able to achieve this sovereignty in the treatment of these diseases”, he clarified.
According to data from the Bolivian Nuclear Energy Agency (ABEN), the center has high-tech scanners that use nuclear energy to detect cancer with great precision through images, It also has two linear accelerators, a high dose rate brachytherapy area, a chemotherapy area, a simulation tomography and a pharmacy.
Regarding the use of nuclear energy, Arce argued that It will not only serve to treat cancer and other diseases, but it will bet on the improvement of seeds within the agricultural area.
The investment made by the state in the construction of the center, which is located in the Parcopata area of district 8 of the Alteña city, it was $49.1 million.
The Chief Minister of the Argentine Foreign Ministry, Lucas Ezequiel DeMaria, the Vice President of the Bolivian State, David Choquehuanca, and some State Ministers were present together, among the authorities who attended the event held in the El Alto district.
Before the act, the lawyer and former leader of the Central Obrera Regional (COR) of El Alto, Roberto de La Cruz, criticized the possible presence of the Russian ambassador at the inauguration, a situation that did not occur in the end.
“President (Luis) Arce Catacora is not the time or opportune to inaugurate the Nuclear Medicine Center together with the Russian ambassador, what do we want to do with this? set the world on fire? encourage the third world war?”, questioned the former Alteño leader.