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| GMC's Regional Cancer Centre in shambles | | Poor patients suffer due to non-functional COBALT-60 equipment | | early times report
Jammu, Feb 4 : Five years since the Radiotherapy department was upgraded to the level of Regional Cancer centre, little or no effort has been made to improve the patient care facility and on international day of cancer patients, the cancer patients of Jammu are a disgruntled lot.
The majority of patients are often left to fend for themselves in the absence of one of the non-functional COBALT 60 machines and go home without receiving Radiotherapy.
In the absence of state of art facilities the patients here in RCC are often greeted with the news of radiotherapy machine going out of order, absence of medical physicist or non-availability of bed during chemotherapy session.
Ironically, the head of the department and senior hospital authorities have turned blind eye towards the basic needs of the cancer patients and till date they have not made alternate arrangements to provide them comfort during their stay.The nook and corner of the RCC in GMC presents a shabby look.
According to the rough estimates of the hospital records the Regional Cancer Centre at Government Medical College Jammu is receiving more than 3000 new cancer patients annually including fresh arrivals and follow up patients. But till date it has just one medical physicist to cater to the nearly 100 cancer patients daily who have to receive radiation in the hospital. Severely short of the manpower, the Centre has just 12 beds to cater to the huge rush, forcing it to refer the patients to other departments.
Sources in the hospital said that the Centre has two Cobalt radio therapy machines, one Radiation simulator and one Brachytherapy radiotherapy machine, but there is only one medical physicist to take care of the whole load of the patients.
This has led to huge problem for the lone medical physicist, who has to shuttle between the machines to ensure the functioning of the services. GMC has a heavy load of cancer patients who need radiotherapy, which works out on average around 90 to 100 patients on a daily basis. The hospital is finding it difficult to manage with limited manpower, putting extra burden on the existing staff and affecting the quality of the services offered.
The Centre has just 12 beds in its ward, while the requirement is more than 40 beds. Many cancer patients undergoing treatment have to share the same bed, as there is severe shortage of the beds in the ward.
Apart from this, the Centre has just four doctors, who have to cater to the patients from the whole province. Sources said that this has led to delays and waiting for the treatment that patients receive, especially the radiation and chemotherapy. Sometimes they have the machines available, but the required manpower is not there.
Head of the Oncology at GMC Dr Ashutosh Gupta said more than 2000 new cancer cases are registered at the department every year, which has put a challenge before the Centre, which is short of manpower, especially the paramedics. He said that he has already sent the requisition to the higher ups and is awaiting their response.
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