South Trinidad gets new cancer centre

CANCER TREATMENT has gotten a whole lot more comfortable and convenient for patients in southern Trinidad as the South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) is now home to the Cancer Centre of TT–South.

Launched on December 14, the facility is housed at the refurbished Augustus Long Hospital (ALH) in Pointe-a-Pierre and is a partnership between the SWRHA and the Ministry of Health.

The ALH was shut down following Petrotrin's closure in November 2018. It was later utilised to accommodate covid19 patients during the pandemic.

The hospital's transfer to the SWRHA was announced in 2023.

At the centre, patients can benefit from services including an oncology outpatient and inpatient clinic, pharmacy services, palliative care outpatient clinic, colposcopy clinic, rehabilitation services haemato-oncology services, infusions, various psychological services and the newly introduced palliative care and hospice.

With 15 and 20 beds for palliative and oncology patients respectively, the facility can see a daily throughput of at least 35 patients.

Chemotherapy is currently only available at the San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH) but will be introduced in 2025 and will see an expansion from 16 patients at a time to 25.

During the launch ceremony, SWRHA chairman Valerie Alleyne-Rawlins described the centre as a "new chapter in the fight against cancer."

Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh said he was horrified by the condition of the SFGH's oncology centre when he took up the ministerial portfolio in 2017. He said patients had to wait in an open shed and would often get wet when it rained.

Apart from being able to receive treatment in a more modern, comfortable environment, Deyalsingh told reporters it was also now more convenient for patients, creating further equitable access to treatment.

"One of the main factors that discourages Trinidadians and Tobagonians from seeking help is distance and time and expense, especially for those of the lower socio-economic class – to pay taxi fare to reach St James (Oncology Centre)."

SWRHA's CEO Brian Armour was unable to give a final cost for the facility as it was a progression of infrastructural work that began when the (ALH) was brought under its management as part of the parallel healthcare system for treating severe Covid19 cases during the pandemic.

However, he said it was funded by the RHA with subvention from the Ministry of Health.

He added that the facility's service offerings will be expanded on a phased basis.

However, one expansion which came earlier than expected was a donation of a US$1.5 million MRI machine which was announced during the ceremony by Phoenix Park Gas Processors Ltd (PPGPL) president, Dominic Rampersad.

"The role of the corporate sector in the development of our national healthcare system cannot be overstated. At PPGPL we believe that our business has a responsibility to contribute to the well-being of the communities we serve."

He said the machine would help medical teams diagnose cancer at their earliest stages, helping to improve patients' chances of successful treatment.

Deyalsingh said he would be working with PPGPL to do the needful to ensure the machine is operationalised.

"We have to build now a separate room to house the MRI and the CT. We can't build that until we get the specs of the machine. That would take a few months, then the machine has to come down, has to be installed, has to be commissioned, so I don't think you'd see that until the middle of 2025."

Since 2020, PPGPL has donated several pieces of critical medical machinery to all RHA's to the tune of US$10 million.

The facility, Deyalsingh added, is only for adult patients with children still being treated at the Mt Hope Hospital under the North Central RHA, saying it will take time before those services could be introduced to the facility. It's a process."