A Poor Patient's Fund will enable the hospital to offer subsidized or free care for those in need. A health insurance scheme including coverage for cancer is offered for individuals or groups. Department of Medical Oncology Drugs or chemotherapy may be used singly or in combination. These may be administered systemically i.e orally or via a peripheral vein or, their administration may be localized to an extremity, an organ or, a body cavity. Chemotherapy may be curative eg.
Biological therapy has definite anticancer activity.
In the 1930s four out of five people diagnosed as having cancer died of their disease. As chemotherapy developed rapidly with new drugs, combination chemotherapy, high dose treatments and adjuvant chemotherapy in the 60s and the 70s, one in three patients was alive and disease free five years after the diagnosis of cancer. If patients with cancer dying of causes unrelated to cancer are excluded, approximately half of all patients with cancer survive. The Medical Oncology Unit was set up in January 1993. It has 18 inpatient beds, a daily Outpatient clinic, and facilities for the administration of chemotherapy to ambulatory patients on day care basis.