THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The new campus of Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) on the land allotted by government at Pulayanarkota, will have state of the art patient care facilities besides research wings. The 15-acre land which was measured on Wednesday, will be used for setting up a full-fledged paediatric oncology wing of the hospital besides other patient support infrastructure facilities. With the main RCC complex now bursting at seams, the new campus at Pulayanarkota will be utilised mainly for patient care activities including facilities for those accompanying the patients during the period treatment.
Some of the departments especially those facing space and infrastructure constraints in the existing complex will be shifted to the new site. The RCC planned the new campus in the wake of Centre dropping its earlier proposal to have two national institutes of cancer including RCC along with the AIIMS linked centre. However, later the Central government decided to go with the AIIMS linked national cancer institute at Jhajhar about 61 km from Delhi. The Rs 2,023 crore AIIMS cancer institute would be the first of its kind in the country and it would be modelled on the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the United States.
For the state government which had been pitching hard for the national institute status, the Centre’s decision had caused huge disappointment.
However, the government now wants to make up for the loss by putting in place state of the art facilities at the RCC new campus. The previous UDF government had given Rs 38 crores for the multi-storey building which was inaugurated earlier this year. The new campus will go a long way in catering to the needs of patients coming from various parts of the state and even the neighbouring states. Apart from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the RCC is also catering to patients from Maldives, Sri Lanka and even Gulf. Of the 2.5 lakh patients in the state, RCC treats close to 2 lakh including nearly 15,000 new patients.
