Cancer Institute [Adyar]

Adyar Cancer Institute is all about Cancer. In the beginning of this century, Cancer meant fear and death. In our country very few knew about Cancer, but for those who had the misfortune to see some one dear attacked insidiously, devoured slowly but surely, have had to witness the long drawn out agony of the last stages, except these, probably no one knew about Cancer. Vital statistics in our country was not accurate to know how many die of cancer every year. According to Hospital story book, in 1886 on the 30th of July , a girl was born in a middle class family in a state called Pudukottai. She was named Muthulakshmi. One hardly realized that she was Gods creation who would rise in this world to fight Cancer. Muthulakshmi went on to become the First woman in India to graduate in medicine in 1912. She along with two Europeans founded the Women' s India Association (WIA) in 1918. In 1927 she became the first woman in the world to preside over a legislative body. She was an active member in the freedom struggle. In 1922 Dr.Muthulakshmi Reddy detected cancer in her sister's rectum. From that day she stayed by her bedside of agony till she passed away a year later. This incident sparked of her involvement in Cancer and she proposed to build a cancer hospital in Madras. She formed a Cancer relief fund in 1949 and with the support of the WIA she established the cancer hospital in 1954 in a small hut. She made sure her son, Dr.Krishnamurthy , after completing his medicine in the US stay back in India and serve the cause of poor cancer patients. The rest is now seen in the form of one of the best state of art Cancer hospitals in the world today. The Institute is spread over 9 acres in Chennai, South India. The hospital houses 423 beds of which 297 are free. Over 1,25,000 patients are seen annually. They are drawn from all over India, parts of South and South East Asia. Over 66% of them are indigent and are treated free of charge. The hospital has state- of- the- art facilities for diagnosis, evaluation and treatment of cancer as well as rehabilitation. Living its mission of providing the state- of- the- art treatment to people with all types of cancers, the Institute is equipped with world class medical facilities. It houses a hospital, College of Oncological Sciences, an exclusive division for Preventive Oncology and a research center.

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