Hospital gets transit home
Over 2.5 million spent for project :
Nadira Gunatilleke
A transit home will be set up at the Maharagama Cancer Hospital at a
cost of Rs 2.5 million. The home will ease the hardships faced by
outdoor cancer patients visiting the hospital for treatment, a Health
Ministry spokesman said.
The spokesman said that at the moment there is only one transit home
at this hospital. It provides food, accommodation and all the other
facilities free of charge for 250 patients and their guardians. This is
the second transit home to be set up at the hospital. It is the
responsibility of the hospital to provide accommodation and other
facilities for transit patients. Similar facilities are available for
transit patients in developed countries.
Daily, a large number of cancer patients and their guardians visit
Maharagama Cancer Hospital for treatment.
They visit the hospital in the evening and spend the night inside
wards, corridors and under trees without any facilities. The following
day, they obtain treatment and go back to their villages. It was
difficult for the health staff to carry out their duties inside
congested wards and corridors.
The hospital accept more donations for the public. Transit homes
solve this problem, he said.
The required funds are to be handed over to the Health development
Fund by MAS Holdings. The CCC Foundation is handling the project. MAS
Holdings donated another Rs.100 million to the health sector to mark its
20th anniversary. Under this program Rs 46 million worth medical
equipment would be provided to the OPD of the hospital. Rs 34 million
worth medical equipments to be provided to expand the Medical ICU and
surgical ICU, he added.
Usually 70 percent of cancer patients die before five years of
diagnosis and only 30 percent survive more than five years.
The aim of the project is providing the maximum care and comfort for
cancer patients.
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