*NCCCR plans to expand its services this year
The National Centre for Cancer Care and Research (NCCCR) at Hamad Medical Corporation, has expanded its services by launching a number of new clinics while planning to introduce more services this year, disclosed a top official.
“Our aim is to provide cancer care across Qatar. Now we have established 37 extra clinics. We opened more clinics in the NCCCR as well as in Al Wakra, Al Khor and Women’s hospitals. We also plan to introduce more services in 2021,” said Dr Mohamed Salem al-Hassan, medical director, NCCCR.
Dr al-Hassan was speaking at a webinar organised by the Ministry of Public Health on the World Cancer Day, marked annually on February 4.
“We have started three more clinics: Pain management clinic, palliative care clinic and pharmacy lead clinic. The pharmacy clinic is the first of its kind in the country where a pharmacist sits with a patient explaining the impact as well as the side effects of the drugs. The pain management clinic is especially for the palliative care patients to lead a good quality of life. We also recently launched a psychotherapy clinic to help the patients and the relatives psychologically,” Dr al-Hassan said.
The official said that there are more projects to be introduced in 2021. He said, “We are planning to start home visit for patient care. We will start a trial with 10 patients and check the feasibility. This will help all those who cannot come to the hospital and we have created a unit for this.”
“We will expand the pharmacy service as we have increased the clinics so that we can cope with the drugs requirements of the patients. There will be further improvement of the survivor programme as well as the patient discharge system,” he said.
Dr al-Hassan said that the NCCCR is making use of the Recovery Centre (Bayat Al Diyafa) as the facility needs more space.
“Bayat Al Diyafa has 57 beds. This helped us to admit more new patients at the NCCCR and move the stable patients to this facility providing more services for new inpatients. We also made some changes to the existing practices and formed new rules for admitting and discharging patients. Some senior officials take note of the patients and decide on who should be admitted and discharged,” he said.
The NCCCR director said that the facility has introduced some of the latest and more advanced technology for treatment.
“We have introduced a new technique such as trigeminal neuralgia technique in radiotherapy. This helps in pain management. Adaptive radiotherapy, an advanced solution in treating cancer patients will be installed and commissioned in 2021,” pointed out Dr al-Hassan.
According to him, the entire team at the facility worked as a family to help the country during the pandemic of Covid-19.
“It was absolutely necessary to continue the services of the NCCCR such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy during the pandemic. We worked to reduce the patient waiting time in the outpatient department as well as people waiting for chemotherapy. It was done with zero cancellation and no delay in any of the appointments for our patients,” said the official.
Dr al- Hassan also said that a sub committee was formed to initiate general measures to minimise the risk of infection and protect the patients and the staff.
“The facility was renovated. The NCCCR expanded in space capacity as the Day Care Unit capacity was increased from 16 to 52 and urgent care beds were increased from six to 10. Efficient utilisation of the facility as well as improvement of the patient services was executed. We daily see an average of 200 patients in the clinics,” he added.
“Our aim is to provide cancer care across Qatar. Now we have established 37 extra clinics. We opened more clinics in the NCCCR as well as in Al Wakra, Al Khor and Women’s hospitals. We also plan to introduce more services in 2021,” said Dr Mohamed Salem al-Hassan, medical director, NCCCR.
Dr al-Hassan was speaking at a webinar organised by the Ministry of Public Health on the World Cancer Day, marked annually on February 4.
“We have started three more clinics: Pain management clinic, palliative care clinic and pharmacy lead clinic. The pharmacy clinic is the first of its kind in the country where a pharmacist sits with a patient explaining the impact as well as the side effects of the drugs. The pain management clinic is especially for the palliative care patients to lead a good quality of life. We also recently launched a psychotherapy clinic to help the patients and the relatives psychologically,” Dr al-Hassan said.
The official said that there are more projects to be introduced in 2021. He said, “We are planning to start home visit for patient care. We will start a trial with 10 patients and check the feasibility. This will help all those who cannot come to the hospital and we have created a unit for this.”
“We will expand the pharmacy service as we have increased the clinics so that we can cope with the drugs requirements of the patients. There will be further improvement of the survivor programme as well as the patient discharge system,” he said.
Dr al-Hassan said that the NCCCR is making use of the Recovery Centre (Bayat Al Diyafa) as the facility needs more space.
“Bayat Al Diyafa has 57 beds. This helped us to admit more new patients at the NCCCR and move the stable patients to this facility providing more services for new inpatients. We also made some changes to the existing practices and formed new rules for admitting and discharging patients. Some senior officials take note of the patients and decide on who should be admitted and discharged,” he said.
The NCCCR director said that the facility has introduced some of the latest and more advanced technology for treatment.
“We have introduced a new technique such as trigeminal neuralgia technique in radiotherapy. This helps in pain management. Adaptive radiotherapy, an advanced solution in treating cancer patients will be installed and commissioned in 2021,” pointed out Dr al-Hassan.
According to him, the entire team at the facility worked as a family to help the country during the pandemic of Covid-19.
“It was absolutely necessary to continue the services of the NCCCR such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy during the pandemic. We worked to reduce the patient waiting time in the outpatient department as well as people waiting for chemotherapy. It was done with zero cancellation and no delay in any of the appointments for our patients,” said the official.
Dr al- Hassan also said that a sub committee was formed to initiate general measures to minimise the risk of infection and protect the patients and the staff.
“The facility was renovated. The NCCCR expanded in space capacity as the Day Care Unit capacity was increased from 16 to 52 and urgent care beds were increased from six to 10. Efficient utilisation of the facility as well as improvement of the patient services was executed. We daily see an average of 200 patients in the clinics,” he added.
