The National Cancer Institute (IKN) in Putrajaya is scheduled to be fully operational in January, said Health ministry director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah yesterday.

He said the RM709-million facility, located near the Putrajaya Hospital in Precinct 7, came with state-of-the-art equipment to treat cancer patients.

“This is a long overdue piece of good news for cancer patients. With the facilities and specialists now available at IKN, they can look forward to getting the best care possible," he said.

He added that IKN would also act as a reference and research centre on cancer in Malaysia and regionally.

Dr Noor Hisham said it was estimated that 40,000 new cases of cancer were detected annually and that cancer had contributed to 11.87 percent of the deaths in country in 2010 as compared with 7.37 percent in 1975.

“Breast cancer is the number one killer of women in Malaysia while for men, it is lung cancer," he said.

IKN is the brainchild of the late Datin Seri Endon Mahmood, the wife of former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. She died of breast cancer in 2005.

IKN, which has 252 beds, is equipped with six radiotherapy bunkers, four surgery theatres, 28 rooms for iodine radiotherapy for thyroid cancer and also a unit for day chemotherapy treatment.

Dr Noor Hisham also said the government was taking steps to increase the number of oncologists from the 37 available now to 100 in meeting with the World Health Organisation's ratio of one oncologist for every 250,000 citizens.

He added that if need be, foreign expertise would be brought in to meet the ratio.

The ratio in the country now is 1:750,000.

Source: Bernama