New Oncology Centre for Laval confirmed

The announcement came this past Monday from Health Minister Yves Bolduc, who confirmed that a new oncology centre to be built behind the Cité de la Santé Hospital will open its doors by 2011.

Responding to a journalist's question at the press conference the minister stated that the time chosen for the announcement, which comes a year and a half after Premier Charest had given the go ahead for a study of the project, has no connection to the probable calling of a provincial election.

To date, officials at Cité de la Santé estimate that about 900 cancer patients a year are driven daily to the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (University of Montreal Hospital Centre (CHUM) for treatment, a situation which soon will be a thing of the past.

In all, it will cost $37.5 million to build the new centre, with $34.3 million coming directly from the Ministry of Health and Social Services, $1.7 million from the Centre de Santé et de Services Sociaux (CSSS) de Laval, and $1.5 million from the Cité de la Santé Foundation.

The Laval centre will the twelfth of its kind in Quebec. Its services will include detection and treatment of cancer, six treatment rooms in radio-oncology, 22 chemotherapy alcoves, as well as a brachytherapy room.

Additional funds will also have to be allocated for the purchase of state-of-the art medical equipment.

According to information obtained from the CSSS de Laval, the new oncology centre will the only one of its kind in the province to regroup integrated services under the same roof.

Also projected are an ambulatory palliative care clinic, a research centre and an oncology pharmacy.

Cancer has attacked Laval with alarming insidiousness in recent years, causing more than 35% of all deaths on the island.