The District General Hospital (GH) will go ahead with its plan to install Linear Accelerator (Linac) in the new building that is coming up as part of the Cancer Care programme in the hospital.
A meeting in this regard will be held next week to review the work done so far, and the immediate steps to be taken to instal the machine, and also to receive the reimbursement of ₹1.46 crore that the hospital had taken from the funds of the Hospital Development Society (HDS) to offload the Linac machine from the Kochi port.
Reimbursement
The HDS funds were temporarily used following the State government’s assurance that the amount would be reimbursed. Hospital authorities have already sent a request to the government. “We hope it will be reimbursed soon as the government’s reply was positive,” said a hospital functionary.
“The installation of the machine is a time consuming process,” said Dr. Junaid Rahman, Advisor, HDS. The building to be constructed requires the approval of the Atomic Energy Regulation Board (AERB). The installation of the machine also requires AERB approval. It might take about two months to fully instal the machine. The officials, who will be installing and calibrating it, are required to send the details of the readings repeatedly to the AERB.
The facility is expected to provide state-of-the-art precision treatment in radiation oncology.