Big boost to cancer care in Meghalaya, cancer care wing inaugurated in Civil Hospital, Shillong

In some good news for cancer patients of Meghalaya, state health minister James K Sangma on Thursday inaugurated the Cancer Care Wing (CCW) at Civil Hospital, Shillong, the capital city of the state. Another similar unit would be established in Tura soon.

“Today we have inaugurated the Cancer Care Unit in Civil Hospital, Shillong. We are working towards establishing another similar wing in Garo Hills in Tura. Work has started for that. We hope that by next year we will be able to establish. We are talking to government of India for necessary funding for that,” Health minister Sangma told reporter in Shillong.

“For now the plan is to establish the CCUs in Shillong and Tura but later on all the districts of the state will have CCUs,” Minister Sangma said.

Giving an update about the Tura Medical College, the Minister said the construction work is being expedited and issues related to the access road and other “difficulties” have been addressed. The issue of the bridge construction work creating problems for the transportation of building material and equipment too has been resolved.

Regarding the Shillong Medical College, the minister said that the government is in advance stages of floating the RFP, “Many people have shown interest. We are in the final stages of floating the RFP. We should be able to identify a suitable party for the work”.

On Wednesday, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma tweeted about the state government signing an MoU with Apollo Telehealth Networking Foundation “for the 1st Cancer Care Project in Meghalaya, a first of its kind initiative in the entire country”.

CM Sangma’s tweets read, “With Meghalaya having one of the highest cancer cases in the country, this initiative will be a game changer which will initiate the early detection rate for Breast cancer, Lung Cancer; Cervical Cancer, Oral Cancer, Esophageal cancer through awareness and mass screening.
An MoU was signed between Govt. of Meghalaya & Apollo Telehealth Networking Foundation for the 1st Cancer Care Project in Meghalaya, a first of its kind initiative in the entire country”.

As per data ICMR-NCDIR data of 2021, Meghalaya ranks second in the country in terms of cancer cases. According to the data, 228 Meghalaya men in every one lakh population has cancer and 118 women in a lakh population is suffering from cancer in the state.

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