ICICI Bank commits Rs 1200 crore to Tata Memorial Centre for cancer care

ICICI Bank on Friday announced a commitment to contribute Rs 1,200 crore towards Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), to expand infrastructure across three major cancer treatment hubs in India.
The proposed donation is the largest CSR commitment made by an Indian corporate towards cancer care.

ICICI will donate the money from its CSR funds to set up three new buildings spanning over a combined area of 7.5 lakh square feet and equip them with high end radiology machines, at TMC’s centres in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, Mullanpur in Punjab and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

Out of Rs 1200 crore, Rs 460 crore will be earmarked for a new block in Kharghar hospital (Navi Mumbai) which will be equipped with facilities including CT scanner and MRT, new facility for outdoor patients, laboratories and radiotherapy facility for in-patients. All these together under one roof will help reduce waiting time significantly for investigations and hence enhance the quality of treatment.

Visakhapatnam and Mullanpur cancer centres, will get Rs 390 crore and Rs 350 crore respectively These centres will provide an array of advanced equipment and therapies, which are required to treat paediatric and haematological cancers. The facilities will include intense chemotherapy, bone marrow transplantation, radiation therapy and newer immunotherapies like CAR-T cell, which are available only at super specialised centres. The centres will also have dedicated beds, day care units, ICUs, MRI and CT – PET Scan facility as well as laboratories for advanced testing including genetics, which are critical for treating paediatric and haematological cancers. These centres will also become regional referral centres in the entire southern and northern parts of the country.

With modern equipment and specialised multidisciplinary teams, the three centres will provide advanced and evidence-based therapies to nearly 25,000 new patients a year, doubling the present capacity and providing a significant boost to the country’s cancer treatment infrastructure.

TMC provides treatment to around 1,25,000 cancer patients every year, representing almost 10% of all cancer cases reported in India.

"As part of our commitment towards promoting healthcare, this initiative will enhance comprehensive cancer care services in different regions of our country by providing patients access to advanced and latest cancer therapies," Chaturvedi said.

"These new buildings will also serve as regional referral centres and mitigate the need for patients to travel long distances to visit Tata Memorial Hospital at Parel in Mumbai,” Chaturvedi added.

“We are extremely grateful to ICICI Foundation for embarking on one of the largest CSR initiatives to improve cancer care across the country," said Dr. RA Badwe, director, Tata Memorial Centre.

"The infrastructure which is being added at the three hospitals .. will provide timely and high quality treatment to people in the region at highly subsidised costs," Badwe said.

TMC which is a grant-in-aid institute, under the Department of Atomic Energy, has been setting up a network of cancer care centres across including states like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Odisha, Assam, and Andhra Pradesh.

The capex for the new hospitals is funded by the Centre, state governments, Tata Trusts and other like minded organisations.

"Each new cancer hospital would cost about Rs 600 - Rs 650 crore," Badwe said.

India is seeing around 1.3 million new cancer cases every year, as people live longer, urbanisation, poor lifestyle choices and consumption of tobacco.

TMC follows a cross subsidisation model, where it treats about 60% patients for free, another 20% pay 10-15% mark up, and the last 20% pay around 60-70% mark up.

"With 80,000 new patients and 600,000 follow-ups, the recurring expenditure (on services) approximately is 330 crore annually, of which Rs 270 crore is generated, we get a grant of Rs 60 crore from the government," Badwe added.