THE 40-BED cancer-care centre, The Hope Institute, located in Elleston Flat, Kingston, was established in 1963 and remained privately owned until the 1970s when it was taken over by the government.
Dr. Dingle Spence, the Institute's consultant in oncology and palliative medicine, said that the Institute, staffed with a competent medical, nursing and support team, has served as "the cancer ward" for not only the Corporate Area but the rest of the island.
Some patients are on chemotherapy and for their radiotherapy treatments they are transported daily to the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH).
"We actively treat cancer patients and we are trying to develop the palliative side of the treatment," she said.
Since her recent return from the United Kingdom, Dr. Spence said that she and the Institute's staff have been trying to develop the cancer-care centre as a centre of excellent not only in pain management but for the total support of patients with cancer.
Pain management, she said, is one of the main thrusts of the Institute. She is guided by the World Health Organisation's international guidelines on pain management and is not afraid to use the strong opioid, morphine, in the management of the intense pain that can sometimes come with cancer.
"Basically when you are treating cancer pain,... as in chronic non-malignant pain...is that you are talking about total pain. You are not just talking about physical pain, you are talking about psychological, emotional, spiritual, social, financial. The person is feeling total pain.
"The approach to cancer pain needs to acknowledge that there are a whole lot of other stuff going on, and it needs to be a much more holistic approach than tends to be taken in medicine as a whole," she said In the past patients were referred to the Institute through the KPH but she says that now, they can be referred directly from their private doctors or clinics.
