Mumbai – St. Jude India ChildCare Centres, in partnership with Tata Memorial Centre’s ACTREC, today inaugurated its largest ‘home away from home’ facility — a 12-storey, 234-unit complex in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai — in the presence of Dr. Sudeep Gupta, Director, Tata Memorial Centre, along with other senior doctors and team members from TMC and ACTREC. This facility will offer free and hygienic accommodation to over 700 families battling childhood cancer annually. The facility is expected to support an estimated 14,000 families over the next 20 years.
Pediatric cancer treatment can extend for several years, requiring several rounds of follow-ups. For families traveling thousands of miles to Mumbai for treatment, finding a place to stay is a daunting challenge. Families at St. Judes are assured of a place to stay for as long as it takes for their child to be cancer-free.
The facility is a testament to St Judes’ commitment to ensure no child undergoing treatment for cancer is denied a safe and caring place to heal. It is expected to significantly help reduce treatment abandonment, attributed to a lack of affordable accommodation. According to an analysis by Tata Memorial Hospital, St. Judes centres have helped bring down treatment abandonment rate to under 5% from over 30% in early 2000s.
The facility will include a library, classroom, a skilling centre and a centre of excellence to provide practical training to other NGOs to set-up and operate similar ‘home away from home’ centres across the country.
Manisha Parthasarathy, Chairperson, St. Jude India ChildCare Centres, said, “This centre at ACTREC, Kharghar is more than a facility—it is a promise kept. No child in India should lose the fight against cancer because they have nowhere to sleep, eat, or heal with dignity. With 234 units under one roof, we are not just housing families, we are saving futures.”
Dr. Sudeep Gupta, Director, Tata Memorial Centre, said “Our partnership with St. Judes in Parel, Mumbai, led us to believe that safe accommodation is a very important accompaniment to medical treatment for children undergoing care. This is why we have partnered with St. Judes again and again. At ACTREC, we are building the largest pediatric cancer hospital in India, with around 350 beds where children and patients with blood cancers will be treated. Therefore, having a St. Judes Centre within the ACTREC campus in Kharghar was a natural corollary to establishing such a large hospital for pediatric cancer patients. It will be a unique demonstration of the fact that children referred from across India will not only receive medical treatment but will also have a place to stay — sometimes for months, or even longer.”
Dr. Pankaj Chaturvedi, Director, ACTREC, said “The new block that we are building with St. Judes at ACTREC is a 12-storey building that will house 234 children along with their parents. This means more patients will be able to stay with us and receive timely treatment. Since they will be living within the campus, if any child falls ill in the middle of the night, the child and parents need only walk about 100 meters to reach the hospital building, where they can be attended to immediately. I can only foresee better outcomes and greater improvement in the overall well-being of both the children and their parents.”
