A 10-bed surgical oncology ward was opened at the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) here on Monday in order to provide a special ward for cancer patients who were so far accommodated in the general surgery in-patient wards.
Specific focus
The new ward would help in providing the necessary specific focus on these patients, Dean of the CMCH V. Kumaran said and added that their being scattered in different wards till now made close follow-up difficult.
The hospital treated 100 cancer cases as out-patients and performed 15 surgeries a day.
Cancers in the mouth, oesophagus, food pipe, colon, stomach, intestine and pancreas were treated at the hospital, a press release issued by its authorities said.
A 10-year effort had led to the government sanctioning the new ward, cancer surgeon and breast reconstruction specialist A. Suresh Venkatachalam said. Resident Medical Officer of the hospital P. Sivaprakasam and Head of the Department of General Surgery P. Govindaraj were among those present at the inaugural. The Dean said the new wing would function under the Head of the Department of General Surgery until a person of the rank of a professor was appointed as the head of surgical oncology in the medical college and hospital. Of the 10 beds in the new wing, six were for men and four for women patients.
One of the operation theatres would be open for this wing alone once a week.
