Improving cancer statistics – a new cancer centre for Northern Ireland

Treatment of cancer has improved greatly since the founding of the Belfast Medical Society in 1806. When the society was 100 years old in 1906, the Belfast Fever Hospital opened in the same year at Belvoir Park in Belfast (fig 1). Initially some cancer treatment was carried out in the Abercorn unit in the City Hospital from 1924, and in 1952, with the decline in infections diseases following the introduction of antibiotic treatments, space in the Fever Hospital was extended to include a new Northern Ireland radiotherapy centre. Early success rates were poor in comparison to today, although overall survival rates have been one of the worst in Western Europe. French et al, in this issue of the journal,¹ show how survival trends have changed for the better with colon and lung cancer survival rates increasing (although death rates for female lung cancer remain worryingly high and will double by 2015). Changes instrumental in this improvement include the Chief Medical Officer's report in 1996 into cancer services ² which recommended four cancer units throughout Northern Ireland, linked through a managed clinical network to a cancer centre located in Belfast. The Belfast City Hospital cancer centre (fig 2) opened appropriately on St Patrick's Day – 17th March 2006 – almost a century after the original fever hospital opened. The Belvoir Park complex officially closed a week later on the 24th March.

Fig 1.

Belvoir Park Hospital.

Fig 2.

The Belfast Cancer Centre.

The Cancer Centre

The six story structure, with powder coated aluminium panels and warm red areas of terracotta rain screening, is connected via three covered walkways to the City Hospital – the incorporation of 10 linear accelerator vaults and an extensive radiotherapy suite, and availability of haematology, general medical and surgical facilities in the City Hospital and the world class academic cancer research complex at the adjoining Queens University Belfast campus, provides an integrated cancer centre complex rivalling the best in the world. The building itself has already scooped some awards including the top award of the Association of Landscape Contractors of Ireland, for the beautiful gardens (fig 3).

Fig 3.

The award winning gardens. (Photos courtesy of Belfast City Hospital Trust)

Thanks to the vision of the hospital Chief Executive Quentin Coey, the foresight of Professor Patrick Johnston (Professor of oncology) in obtaining money for buildings and research staff, and Dr Russell Houston, (clinical director of oncology) and Mrs Denise Stockman (project manager), they have allowed the architects to seamlessly produce the most modern integrated cancer centre complex in Europe. When the Ulster Medical Society meets to celebrate the 250-year anniversary in 2056, it will be interesting to see the contents of the programme. Will the decline in infectious disease that we saw in the early part of last century be mirrored by a decline in cancer by the middle of this century? We shall have to wait and see, but progress so far this century has been a good start.