Revert status of cancer centre: Harsimrat to CM

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, May 8

Former Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal today said closing down the Advanced Cancer and Diagnostic Centre here to convert it into a Covid centre would amount to playing with the lives of cancer patients.

She advised Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to review the decision and use other available facilities, including the AIIMS hospital here, for dedicated Covid care.

Harsimrat, who even wrote to the CM on the issue, said the advanced cancer centre here was the last hope for cancer patients of the Malwa belt who could not travel to the cancer hospital at Acharya Tulsi Cancer Institute in Bikaner due to the Covid pandemic. She said the Baba Farid University hospital had also been turned into a dedicated Covid centre leaving the advanced cancer institute here as the only resort for cancer patients. She said as many as 150 to 200 patients availed of radiotherapy at the cancer centre here daily and that there was a two-and-a-half month waiting period to avail radiotherapy treatment.