India's Largest Cancer Hospital With 700 Beds Opened In Haryana, Will Cover Patients From NCR
Civil work and installation of basic equipment in the hospital's OPD block is complete and, on Monday, a day before the commencement of OPD services, the staff could be seen giving finishing touches for a smooth start of what is being touted as India's largest public funded hospital project to come up in decades. It is being built at a cost of Rs 2, 035 crore.
Dr Randeep Guleria, director of AIIMS which is tasked with running the hospital, told TOI said civil work of 710-bedded hospital project is complete.
"We are doing soft launch of OPD services on Monday. By mid-January, indoor admissions will also be opened to public in phased manner," he said.
NCI will be started in three phases. In the first phase, which is likely to kick-off from January to March 2019, OPD services and 250 beds will be available.
By December 2019, indoor admission will be increased up to 500 beds and then in another one year plans are afoot to make it fully operational.
NCI will take the load off AIIMS' existing cancer hospital which sees 1300 patients daily. Only about 400 get treatment due to lack of facilities, say doctors. "In the past few decades, incidence of cancer has gone up significantly. But facilities for its treatment have remained static in public sector. Private hospitals providing cancer treatment are many but they are unaffordable for most patients," one of the oncologists at AIIMS added.
NCI is being headed by Dr G K Rath who is also the chief of Institute Rotary Cancer hospital at AIIMS. Sources said two linear accelerators - device used for external radiation - have been purchased by NCI at a cost of Rs 48 crore, in addition to CT scan and x-ray machines.
A state-of-the-art lab that can process 60,000 sample daily is also ready.
Once fully-operation, NCI will act as the nodal institution for all activities related to cancer care in the country and will have linkages with all regional cancer centres and other institutes in the country. "We plan to focus a lot of research work, particularly those involving cancers that are common to our country," the AIIMS director said.
Cancer is the second biggest killer in India. The number of cases of this dreaded disease, studies show, has doubled from 5.5 lakh in 1990 to 10.6 lakh in 2016.
The leading types of cancer in India 2016, as per a recent, among both sexes are stomach cancer (9%), breast cancer (8.2%), lung cancer (7.5%), lip and oral cavity cancer (7.2%), pharynx cancer other than nasopharynx (6.8%), colon and rectum cancer (5.8%), leukaemia (5.2%) and cervical cancer (5.2%).