Varian announced that The Nairobi West Hospital, Kenya is the first clinic in Kenya, in West, Central, and East Africa to begin treating cancer patients using the Halcyon™ radiotherapy system.
The Halcyon system simplifies and enhances virtually every aspect of image-guided volumetric intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). The system is well suited to treat a majority of cancer patients, offering advanced treatments for lung, prostate, breast, head & neck, and many other forms of cancer.
The Head of Operations at the hospital, Ms. Tina Saini, confirmed that the hospital would offer services at the same rates as other facilities with no hidden costs, in spite of their importation of these superior cancer battling machines.
“We brought in the machine with the singular idea of saving Kenyans with cancer the cost of flying to India to get treatment, not to mention the attendant costs of accommodation (for the patient and their loved ones).” Tina Saini said.
Halcyon features a streamlined workflow that only requires nine steps from the start-to-the-end of treatment compared to up to more than 30 steps with older technologies, which left patients wasted and exhausted.
World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2018 said that 47,887 Kenyans get cancer every year and 32,987 die from the disease.
Miracles are rare when it comes to things like cancer, they are mirages even when on prayer. Now we have modern day panaceas to cancer like MRI – Magnetic Resonance Imaging – of which Halcyon is forefront.
There is hope that these machines, and the centralization of cancer treatment at Nairobi West Hospital, will improve efficiency of the cancer treatment in the country as well as patient experience.