Regional Cancer Centre of Radiotherapy, RIMS likely to be derecognized June 5 2013:The Regional Cancer Centre (RCC), Manipur is likely to be derecognised as the RIMS authority failed to submit the Utilisation Certificate (UC) in time. It may be mentioned that the Radio Therapy department of Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Imphal was upgraded as RCC as a part of the special cancer program taken up the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of the Central government. According to a highly-placed source, the Ministry selected 25 cancer care hospitals and research institutes from all the states and union territories of the country, as a part of its special cancer program. The program has been taken up to control cancer disease and to conduct in-depth researches in the field of cancer. The selected hospitals and institutes are to be equipped with latest state of art technology and other related infrastructures so as to enable better healthcare in this line. As a part of this, the Radiotherapy Department of RIMS was selected and the department has been upgraded as the Regional Care Centre (RCC) for this purpose. Under this programme, an amount of Rs 5 crores was sanctioned to this centre. From this amount, a tele-cobalt machine called ‘Equinox’, built by the Canada-based MDS Nordion Company, was bought in the year 2008. This is a highly improved machine as compared to the ‘Theratron 780’ that was bought by the then Manipur Chief Minister RK Ranbir during the inauguration of this centre on September 14, 1991. It may be mentioned that this machine is one of the most advanced of its kind in India at that time. However, the failure to arrange a proper place for its installation and inability to appoint competent technicians to handle the machine resulted in the non-use of the machine till today. The first phase fund was also used in other purposes like construction of the new building of the centre and setting up of infrastructures. On the other hand, all the machines kept in this centre should be runned under the guidelines of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), Mumbai. As per the strong instruction from this board to appoint two technicians for the handling of these machines, the centre had requested the RIMS authority to appoint the two technicians. However, the failure to fill these posts has resulted to the patients not being able to avail the service of this expensive machine. For the time being, the old Theratron 780 has been repaired again and again and is doing its needful to serve the patients. This has caused huge inconvenience to the rising number of cancer-patients in the state, and some even died while waiting for their turn. Moreover, the Simulator (Simulex) machine which was installed in 2008, has not been functioning since last year due to the breakdown of the card of this machine. The machine was supposed to provide quality-oriented and accurate treatment of the cancer disease. The machine should be used by keeping the steam under control with the use of silica gel. But as the room where the machine was installed has not been built properly, water is seeping in from outside leading to high humidity in the room, which is a major reason for the breakdown of the machine. Meanwhile, the RIMS authority has failed to submit the utilisation certificate of the funds sanctioned by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to the RCC of RIMS. The source further revealed that this failure has led to obstruction of the release of further funds from the ministry. In such a scenario of worsening infrastructures and inability to submit UC in time, it is likely that the Ministry may derecognise this centre. Regarding this matter, a meeting with the RIMS Director was sought by The People’s Chronicle to seek his clarification, but was denied the opportunity. The need of the hour is for the authorities to strictly follow the official procedures in order to retain the only Cancer Centre of the state. The need is paramount as the number of cancer-patients in the state is increasing day by day, and sizeable amount of the state’s economy is drained outside when patients went outside for treatments.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 23:58:05 +0000
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