Excavation works start on new oncology centre

Excavation works have started on the site where a new oncology centre will be built within Mater Dei Hospital, housing 74 beds for cancer patients.

The centre would cost about €59 million, 85 per cent of which would be funded by the EU, Health Minister Joseph Cassar said during a visit to the site located across the road from the hospital’s lobby.

He explained that the centre would be linked to the hospital’s main building through an overpass for patients and an underpass for services.

He preferred not to give a deadline for the project’s completion saying this depended on the progress of the tendering process for the final construction phase. The call for expressions of interest would be issued in the coming weeks.

Research shows 1,250 Maltese people develop some type of cancer every year. About 700 deaths are directly attributed to cancer that is responsible for about 25 per cent of Malta’s annual death rate.

Dr Cassar said the centre would be divided into four main sections. The inpatient area would contain 74 beds – an increase of 47 beds from Boffa Hospital where cancer patients were being treated. He said specialists and staff members who worked at Boffa Hospital would be transferred to the centre once it started operating.

The centre, spread over 22,000 square meters of floor area, will also have an outpatient area, treatment wards and a services’ section.

Dr Cassar said the construction, managed by the Foundation for Medical Services, would be divided into three phases.

The excavation phase started on Monday and will be completed within six months.

The construction of four bunkers could start during excavation. These will house radiation treatment equipment, including three linear accelerators. The fourth bunker will be used to service equipment but, in future, could be converted into another treatment area.

The third and final stage includes the development, design and building of the centre.

In July, a government spokesman had said the centre should be up and running by 2013.

The government had originally planned to transfer cancer services from Boffa Hospital to Zammit Clapp Hospital but eventually decided to build the new centre at Mater Dei.

During the 2009 Budget, the cost of the hospital had been put at €24 million.

Last month, the University of Malta signed an agreement with Cardiff University, in Wales, to offer a two-pronged degree in radiotherapy in both diagnostic and therapeutic studies. So far, the University only offered a degree in the diagnostic branch of radiography. Students who wished to study therapeutics (used to treat cancer patients through, for example, radio therapy) had to pursue their studies abroad.