Malawi National Cancer Centre to start offering Radiotherapy in February

Malawi National Cancer Centre (MNCC), situated at Kamuzu Central Hospital, will start offering radiotherapy services next month

Head of Health Infrastructure Development in the Ministry of Health Dr. Sanderson Kuyeli said currently medical personnel at the facility are undergoing a series of training on operation of radiotherapy machines.

Kuyeli said the centre is designed to offer services such as cancer surgery, radiotherapy, diagnostic and palliative care adding that the centre is currently offering chemotherapy services only.

According to Kuyeli the plan was to start offering radiotherapy services in December last year but the machines arrived later than anticipated, so this led to shifting everything ahead.

The other reason is that the machines are more complex and require a series of trainings for the operators.

Kuyeli says Radiotherapy treatment will be facilitated by two different machines capable of providing treatment to 40 patients each per shift, with a single shift lasting eight hours.

He states that when the third machine is commissioned, the capacity will also increase.

Kuyera also said the centre will focus on at least nine kinds of cancer, such as cervical cancer which accounts for 24 percent of all cancers in Malawi and Kaposi’s sarcoma which makes up 18 percent of cancer cases.

The cancer centre has six trained oncologists, three medical physicists, 18 radiation technologists, 42 nurses, including three specializing in pediatrics, four nuclear technologists and three lab technicians who have been undergoing series of trainings and last phase of such trainings are underway on the machines.

Kuyeli has disclosed that in the next financial year, plans are to construct more wards including private wings and government will also construct a hostel as well as guardian shelter.

He revealed that discussions are also at an advanced stage for regional cancer centres to be situated in Mzuzu and Blantyre in order to serve people of Malawi better.

Kuyeli estimates that annual new cancer cases in Malawi are at 15,349 (9,383 women and 5,966 men).