New MICU will help save more lives – NCI director

Nipuni WIMALAPALA

Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Dr Kanishka Karunaratne thanked First Lady, Shiranthi Rajapaksa for her pioneering efforts to set up the new Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) of the National Cancer Institute that would help save the lives of more patients.

“This is a remarkable moment when we have received a complete MICU which we desperately wanted,” he further said. The new Medical Intensive Care Unit of the National Cancer Institute, was opened yesterday by First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa.

The MICU was the result of an effort to strengthen cancer care facilities offered to patients in Sri Lanka, the Colour of Courage Trust in partnership with MAS Holdings and A&E, together with many generous donors. The six -bed MICU consists of all the facilities complying with the required health standards such as an isolation unit and a separate dialysis unit.

On earlier occasions, serious patients were transfered to the Colombo National Hospital for ICU facilities and it was not much effective. Using the new ICU, patients will be treated within the National Cancer Institute. Most cancer patients, being highly susceptible to infection soon after treatment such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy need to be isolated in an ICU, which despite the National Cancer Institute’s 50 year history, was a facility that cancer patients lacked. Now the new ICU will provide all the required facilities.

The director board of Colour of Courage Trust Dian Gomes, Nadan Sivagananathan and R Thyagarajah and MAS Holdings Director Ajay Amalean also participated.