Patients still wait for chemotherapy, surgery at ACDTRI

Tribune News Service

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Bathinda, March 31

The Advanced Cancer Diagnostic, Treatment and Research Institute (ACDTRI) in Bathinda will prove as a boon for the poor cancer patients in the Malwa region after the facility of surgery and chemotherapy are launched.

The institute achieved some success in having the first ever radiotherapy facility at government rates, besides some new advanced equipment for treatment here.

Its deadline of March 31 this year to start chemotherapy and surgery couldn’t be met. However, patients manage to get chemotherapy treatment at the NCD Centre in Bathinda, which is a Centre and state project but surgery is unavailable here.

The cancer patients here at the ACDTRI centre get treatment at same rates that are charged by the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) Chandigarh.

The centre had recently got the advanced technology, including digital X-Ray, dental X-Ray, 1.5 tesla MRI, CT scan with simulator, ultrasound with multiple probes under guided cytology, biopy, C-arc digital radiology and other equipment with an estimated cost of Rs 20 crore.

It has been serving cancer patients for consultation, treatment plans and radiotherapy COBALT treatment since January last year and has more than 250 registered patients.

It provides big relief to patients who come for radiation therapy that costs around Rs one lakh in a private hospital whereas it costs up to Rs 10,000 at the ACDTRI.

It was on October 28, 2011, when Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal laid the foundation stone of the ACDTRI here in Bathinda, two months after the Punjab Government signed an agreement with the Hospital Services Consultancy Corporation of India (HSCCI) for the construction of the first cancer hospital in the district in public sector.

The ACDTRI was planned to cater to the poor cancer patients, however, the project got delayed for about a year on account of construction.

Opened at the industrial growth centre, Mansa Road, it is the government’s first cancer research institute built on six acres at a cost of Rs 60 crore.

Poor patients who have been visiting Bikaner in Rajasthan for the cheap treatment now come to the centre.

Director of ACDTRI, Dr MK Mahajan, said, “We are putting efforts and within a month, the treatment for surgery and chemotherapy will start. Due to some technical faults, we could not meet the deadline of March 31. But, till the end of this month, the facility of surgery will start here as all the furniture and equipment have reached our centre.”