RNMCRC is the field extension center of CNCI situated jn rural
surrounding approximately 50 Km away from the city of Kolkata.
Community based cancer awareness, cancer screening and early
detection and home based palliative care services were conducted
from the center for the population of the district of Hooghly
and surrounding districts. The center can be developed as
the nodal center for cancer control activities including palliative
care as per the District Cancer Control Program guidelines
under the National Cancer Control Program (NCCP). RNMCRC can
serve as a much needed link between the referral center (CNCI)
and the community.
The Ruplal Nandy Memorial Cancer Centre at Chandernagore was opened by the
Union Health Minister Dr. Sushila Nayar in February 1, 1965 in a building
donated by Shri Shib Sankar Nandy son of Ruplal Nandy, the rich Zaminder of
that area. The building, previously known as Gala-Kuthi’ bears a great
heritage with a history of connection with dignitaries of the past like
Maharaja Krishnachandra, poet Bharat Chandra Roy, great freedom fighter Malital
Roy and many others. The purpose of the centre is to serve as a subsidiary and
supplementary centre for cancer investigative work in the semi-urban area at
Chandernagore. On 1st February, 1966, Cancer Chemotherapy Clinical Research
wing was opened in the main building and subsequently on 21st November, 1966,
the out patients department and cancer detection service were opened in a newly
built two story annexe building. Since then this field unit of Chandernagore has
been reorganized and developed to conduct regular Cancer Detection Clinics,
training workshops for health workers involved in cancer detection at District
Hospitals and Primary Health Centers and to establish pain relief and
palliative clinics for patients receiving treatment at CNCI, Kolkata. This
peripheral center of Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute has been geared up
to run regular specialist clinics and to do different diagnostic tests
including biopsy so that the patients referred from the villages do not have to
travel a long distance to get their diagnosis established. Cancer specialists
from different Departments of CNCI now regularly hold clinics at the Center and
to develop a Rural Cancer Registry and Epidemiological Survey field station.
RNMCRC has been included in the CEDS project of CNCI Preventive Oncology and
also in the Modified District Cancer Control Programme (MDCCP), a pilot project
of the NCCP.