The Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), which completed 75 years of service to cancer patients in 2016, "has launched an ambitious project wherein a hadron radiation therapy center will be created at a cost of Rs 450 crore. We are also launching a 200-bed center exclusively for women and children, and a shelter for patients’ kin, which can accommodate 250 people,” stated its medical director Dr Rajendra Badwe, speaking to Mumbai Mirror (MM) on December 16, 2016.
Tata Memorial Centre, Parel
The Cancer Research Institute, its research wing, was opened in 1952 and has since metamorphosed into the Advanced Centre for Treatment Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC). It has "over the years focused on the integration of basic and clinical research including evolving inspiring pathways for transformational research,” reports MM, adding, "The academic unit of TMC imparts training in specialty and super specialty courses in oncology and is affiliated to the Homi Bhabha National Institute.”
The TMC is the first exclusively cancer specialty hospital in Asia. Starting as an 80-bed center in Parel in 1941, the six-storey structure covered 15,000 sq m area and had an annual budget of five lakh rupees. Today it has 700 beds spread over 75,000 sq m, with an annual budget of Rs 300 crore, notes MM. Over 65,000 new cases are treated at Asia’s largest facility for cancer every year, as well as 4,50,000 follow-up cases. Patients, 60% of whom receive free or highly subsidized care, refer to the Hospital as their "temple.” People seeking treatment here come not only from all over India but also from the Middle East and Africa, notes the newspaper.
Parsiana encapsulated the Hospital’s history (see "Bhabha’s brilliance,” January 7, 2011): "In 1941 the Sir Dorab Tata Trust established Tata Memorial Hospital and ran it for a few years, but cancer treatment being expensive, government aid was required. In 1957 the Hospital was handed over to the government of India and placed under the ministry of health. The devoted doctors and surgeons who had been nurtured there met Dr Homi J. Bhabha and pointed out that in the US the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) ran a number of cancer research centers as radiation therapy needed isotopes which came under its jurisdiction. With the Prime Minister’s approval, Bhabha took the Tata Memorial Hospital under the Department of Atomic Energy’s (AEC) wing in 1963 and as AEC chairman served on its board. In 1966 the Tata Memorial Hospital and Indian Cancer Research Centre merged. The institution was named Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) with the AEC chairman as the ex officio chairman of the governing council.”