The Acharya Harihar Regional Cancer Centre (AHRCC) will add 30 more beds by April and open four new departments.
The governing body meeting of the hospital chaired by Health Minister Damodar Rout on Thursday decided to open departments of Ortho Oncology, Preventive Oncology, Molecular Diagnosis and Palliative Medicine.
The MCI would soon be moved with a formal proposal for adding the new disciplines in the only Government cancer hospital of the State.
The hospital presently has 10 departments in Oncopathology, Surgical Oncology, Gynec Oncology, Medical Oncology, Head and Neck, Radiation, Medical Physics, Nuclear Medicine, Radiation Diagnosis, Anesthesiology and Dentistry. It has around 260 beds but has to handle over 10,000 patients every year from the State and neighbouring West Bengal, Jharkhand and Chattishgarh.
The new beds would be operational from April 1 even as the meeting decided to hasten construction of the 11-storey Annexe on the campus. The state-of-the-art complex has been envisaged to add 100 more beds along with establishing a Linac House and Oncology block. The Government aims to increase the bed strength to 600 in the next few years.
An outlay of Rs 14.12 crore for the hospital for 2013-14 has been approved. It also took note of the staff crunch affecting the effective functioning and service delivery in the hospital. There are a large number of vacancies, particularly in the reserved categories as candidates are not available even after advertising the vacancies twice.
While deciding to go for third advertisement, the Government would also be moved for creation of new posts as the hospital is being upgraded into a Centre of Excellence under Central scheme. About Rs 250 crore would be released for infrastructure development and procurement of new and advanced equipment.