KOCHI: With just 10 days to go for the second anniversary of the foundation laying for the Kochi Cancer Centre, the state government is still dragging its feet on the project. Despite Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan coming to the city for a second time on Saturday after assuming office, the governing council of the cancer centre which he chairs has not met. Nor has any clarity emerged how funds for the project will be found or how the outpatient wing will be opened.
All eyes are now on the participation of Finance Minister Dr Thomas Isaac on Monday in the one-day workshop organised by the EMS Research Centre, sponsored by the CPM, at Ernakulam Town Hall to debate the state budget proposals for the development of Ernakulam. The Kochi Cancer Centre has not been given any special allocation in this budget while RCC and Malabar Cancer Centre got Rs 59 crore and Rs 29 crore, respectively.
The finance minister in his Budget speech said that the Kochi Cancer Centre can make use of part of the Rs 250 crore earmarked in this year's stimulus package for the health sector. However, development of cathlabs in general hospitals, dialysis units in taluk hospitals, Malabar Cancer Centre and Thiruvananthapuram Mental Health Care Hospital all come under this head.
Dr Isaac specifically said that Rs 100 crore from this will go to the special development scheme of Kozhikode Mental Health Care Hospital. So it has to be seen how the required money for realising the first phase consisting of 150 beds of the cancer centre can be squeezed out from the allotted Rs 250 crore on a huge head.
"During the tenure of the last government we put earnest efforts to realise the cancer centre which led close to realising the outpatient wing," said Ernakulam MLA Hibi Eden. "Dr Asha Thomas and Dr V.P. Gangadharan were brought in as part of this and funds too were made available. It is the turn of the CPM which raised a lot of criticism about the UDF government's work to do its part to open the OP and realise the rest," said Mr Hibi
With the transfer of Ernakulam district collector M.G. Rajamanickam, the post of special officer for the project has fallen vacant. "We want a permanent special officer in the IAS rank for the centre. Then only the work can be pushed in right earnest," said Dr N.K. Sanal Kumar, leader of the Justice Krishna Iyer Movement that is spearheading the cancer centre movement.
