CM Mamata may inaugurate cancer centre at SSKM

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to inaugurate a state-of-the-art cancer centre in the city soon.

Built at an estimated cost of Rs 200 crore, the two centres are coming up in the city and Siliguri. The state government has collaborated with the Tata Medical Centre, Mumbai to set up the cancer centres.

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The modern cancer hub is coming up opposite the SSKM hospital. It is a 10-storey building with both indoor and outdoor facilities. Initially, two or three indoor facilities will be set up and then the other departments and the out-patient department will come up.

Already a separate building inside the SSKM hospital to treat cancer patients has been set up. The volume of patients has increased over the years. Senior doctors said people across age are now suffering from cancer. There are children suffering from eye and bone cancer while cervical, breast and uterine cancer in women have become rampant. At SSKM, a pilot project on breast cancer patients is going on. It the project becomes successful, it will take less than five minutes to detect breast cancer. Once the cancer hub becomes functional, the flight of cancer patients to Mumbai will be less.

The first cancer hospital in the state, namely Chittaranjan Cancer hospital, was set up by Dr BC Roy with Dr Subodh Mitra as its director. His daughter, Dr Jayashree Roy Chowdhury was the director of CNCI for many years.

Dr Roy had detected cancer in Professor Amartya Sen. He was given radiation at the Chittaranjan Cancer hospital. Later, he went abroad and completed his treatment.