GUWAHATI: The BJP president Amit Shah will stand in witness when the Tata Trusts Chairman, Ratan Tata will lay the foundation of the unique 19-hospitals cancer care grid project in Assam centrally here on Monday. All the 19 grid hospitals will become fully functional within two years.
Assam government and Tata Trusts have joined hands to float Assam Cancer Care Foundation (ACCF) with an initial capital of Rs 1910 crore to set up a cancer care grid comprising 18 hospitals and an apex research and development multi-specialty unit. The cancer care units in various levels would be spread all over the state that is known for high incidence of the disease. The Tata Trusts have initially invested Rs 830 crore and Assam government has invested Rs 1080 crore.
The ACCF will be run by a Trust comprising six members, three each from Assam government and Tata Trusts. Assam’s health and family welfare minister will be the chairman of the Trust that will manage cancer care hospitals.
Assam health and family welfare minister, Dr Himanta Bishwa Sarma on Saturday informed that the cancer care grid would have five Level-3 cancer day care units where basic treatment will be provided while there will be 12 Level-2 cancer care units where advanced multi-specialty treatment will be provided. Each of these Level-2 hospitals will have 150 beds each.
Assam Medical College Hospital (AMCH) in Dibrugarh will be the Level-1 Unit which will be functioning as referral unit in the grid. It will have 250 beds.
The sate-of-the art Guwahati Medical College Cancer Care hospital with 500 beds will be the apex unit of the grid that will also function as the research and development unit which will be rechristened as South East Asian Cancer Research Organisation to do research on disease profile of the neighbouring countries like Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Bangladesh etc. Rs 200 Core additional fund is being invested in the apex cancer care unit in the grid out of which Rs 180 crore has been provided by the Centre and Rs 20 crore has been invested by the Assam Government.
As per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) report 2016 every year 31825 new cancer patients are detected in Assam while there is average burden of 1.5 lakh cancer patients from preceding years who are being treated in government and non-government hospitals in the state.
The health minister said, “ Seventy per cent cancer patients face mortality in the state because of lack of treatment or late detection. If properly treated, 60 per cent of the cancer patients could have been saved.”
He said many expert doctors from outside the state would be joining Assam Cancer Care Foundation (ACCF) hospitals while recruitment drive has been started to recruit experienced nurses and other para-medical staff for these advanced hospices.
He informed that taking a cue from the initiative of Assam Government with the Tata Trusts, government of Bihar and Government Odisha had also got in touch with Tata Trusts to have cancer care hospitals in those states in the same model that Assam has adopted.