City to get 125-bedded cancer hosp

Nagpur: A 125-bedded cancer hospital with 20% beds reserved for BPL patients will be functional within two months in the city. The hospital will come up at Automotive Square, Kamptee Road in North Nagpur which lacks even a general hospital. The hospital plans to increase the capacity to 500 beds if required and develop a medical research institute.
The hospital will run on PPP model on NIT’s land.The hospital, which will have state-of-the-art facilities, will be started by Health Care Global (HCG) along with Nagpur Cancer Hospital and Research Institute (NCHRI) at a cost of 100 crore.
Housed in a G+5 building, the hospital will provide treatment to every type of cancer and specially for brain tumour. “The treatment fees will be at par with government rates. At the same time, 20% bed will be reserved for poor patients,” said Dr Suchitra Mehta and Dr Ajay Mehta, directors of NCHRI.
“At present, the RST Regional Cancer Hospital is taking the entire burden of patients coming to city from Central India. With more number of cancer hospitals, the load will be divided and the quality of treatment improved,” said Dr Suchitra.
NCHRI has collaborated with the HCG group known for precision-based cancer treatment. The hospital will be the first in the region and second in Maharashtra after Nashik to offer pure precision based diagnosis and care for cancer patients.
HCG chairman Dr BS Ajaikumar, while speaking at the International Cancer Congress in the city on Saturday, said, “Evidence based approach is like taking a trial on 100 patients, if it works on at least 50 patients, the approach is declared legitimate and then all 100 patients are given the same treatment even if it might not suit the other 50.”
Talking to TOI, he said, “With the precision based approach, we try to understand the genes, microarray and profile of individuals. By collecting the data we slowly and surely analyse and do precision medicine.”
He said, “We tried the precision-based approach on 780 cancer patients who were already taking traditional treatment. We found that 48% of the patients were following wrong treatment.”
“I always believe the evidence based medicine has a problem. I don’t support the idea of categorizing cancer patients by putting them into different stages.”
He said, “If the patient has breast cancer and one legion in bone, traditionally we put them in fourth stage, but with proper treatment the patient might live for another 10 years. Again a patient with breast cancer with a legion in bone but has liver full of disease, might live for two months but we still declare him in the fourth stage. Is it not an unfair form of the treatment?”
He said precision-based treatment is affordable, because it doesn’t involve unnecessary tests and treatment.
Radiotherapist Dr Kulkarni awarded
Union minister Nitin Gadkari presented the lifetime achievement award to city-based radiotherapist Dr Harish Kulkarni at the International Cancer Congress organized in the city on Saturday. Kulkarni worked as the founder director of RST Regional Cancer Hospital between 1974 and 1999. He was lauded for serving cancer patients when the region had no proper treatment facility and patients had to travel to Mumbai.
Apart from Kulkarni, former director of Tata Memorial Hospital Mumbai Dr Praful B Desai, director of Jaslok Hospital Mumbai, Dr Suresh H Adwani, director of SRL Diagnostic Mumbai Dr Anita Borges and chairman of GEM Hospital and Research Centre Coimbatore Dr C Palanivelu also received the award.