RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Can­cer pa­tients in South Trinidad, long ac­cus­tomed to trav­el­ling to the St James Med­ical Cen­tre for di­ag­no­sis and treat­ment, will soon ben­e­fit from ad­vanced ser­vices clos­er to home.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh of­fi­cial­ly opened the Can­cer Cen­tre of T&T South at the re-pur­posed Au­gus­tus Long Hos­pi­tal in Pointe-a-Pierre yes­ter­day.

De­liv­er­ing greet­ings at the open­ing, Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors Lim­it­ed Pres­i­dent Do­minic Ram­per­sad an­nounced the do­na­tion of a US$1.5 mil­lion MRI ma­chine to the fa­cil­i­ty. Ram­per­sad said the state-of-the-art equip­ment will be cru­cial for ear­ly de­tec­tion and im­proved re­cov­ery out­comes, al­low­ing med­ical pro­fes­sion­als to iden­ti­fy tu­mours at ear­li­er stages.

“I am proud to an­nounce that, at the re­quest of my min­is­ter, I have re­ceived board ap­proval to do­nate the MRI ma­chine to this cen­tre. This in­vest­ment is crit­i­cal to en­hanc­ing can­cer care,” Ram­per­sad said.

Deyals­ingh said the Can­cer Cen­tre is part of the Min­istry of Health’s ef­fort to de­cen­tralise health­care ser­vices. He em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of eq­ui­table ac­cess, not­ing that dis­tance and ex­pense of­ten dis­cour­age pa­tients from seek­ing time­ly care.

“This de­cen­tral­i­sa­tion al­lows pa­tients to ac­cess care with­in a rea­son­able time and dis­tance, just as we are do­ing with men­tal health clus­ters across the coun­try,” Deyals­ingh said.

He as­sured that main­te­nance of med­ical equip­ment, in­clud­ing the MRI ma­chine, would be pri­ori­tised.

“We have set clear tar­gets for the bio­med­ical en­gi­neer­ing team to en­sure ma­jor ma­chines in the RHAs re­main op­er­a­tional 95 per cent of the time. The days of ma­chines break­ing down for weeks are over,” he said.

The promised MRI ma­chine and a CT scan­ner will re­quire the con­struc­tion of a spe­cialised room be­fore in­stal­la­tion. Deyals­ingh es­ti­mat­ed that the equip­ment will like­ly be­come op­er­a­tional by mid-2025. He al­so said be­cause of lim­it­ed med­ical on­col­o­gists in the pub­lic health sys­tem, the Cab­i­net had grant­ed ap­proval for eight train­ing awards to qual­i­fied na­tion­als for a Doc­tor of Med­i­cine in Med­ical On­col­o­gy.

As­sis­tant Med­ical Di­rec­tor, Sec­ondary Care Ser­vices, SWRHA Dr Liane Conyette said the new fa­cil­i­ty ac­com­mo­dates in­pa­tient and out­pa­tient ser­vices with 20 on­col­o­gy beds, 15 pal­lia­tive care beds, and di­ag­nos­tic ser­vices.

She said while the cen­tre cur­rent­ly fo­cus­es on adult on­col­o­gy and pal­lia­tive care, there are plans to ex­pand ser­vices.

“This is a phased project. For now, chil­dren with can­cer will con­tin­ue to be treat­ed at Mount Hope. Par­ents are ad­vised to con­sult on­col­o­gists to as­sess the best op­tions for treat­ment,” Dr Conyette said.

When asked about the cost of the new cen­tre, SWRHA CEO Dr Bri­an Ar­mour said the project was fund­ed in­ter­nal­ly through cap­i­tal ex­pens­es. He said the fa­cil­i­ty’s de­vel­op­ment was planned over two years, with much of the work ini­ti­at­ed dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“In this open­ing phase, we are pro­vid­ing di­ag­nos­tic ser­vices, pal­lia­tive care, and on­col­o­gy wards, with plans to ex­pand equip­ment and ser­vices,” Dr Ar­mour said.

Al­so at­tend­ing the func­tion were the chair­man of Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Michael Quam­i­na, SC and the chair­man of SWRHA Va­lerie Al­leyne-Rawl­ins.