Private oncology services facility in Namibia
Not to be confused with Dr AB May Cancer Treatment Centre at Windhoek Central Hospital[1]
Hospital in Khomas Region, Namibia
Namibian Oncology Centre (NOC), also Namibia Oncology Centre, is a private, specialized, tertiary care medical facility. The facility offers radiotherapy since July 2015 and oncology pharmacy together with chemotherapy since November 2015.[2]
Location
The centre maintains three locations, two in the capital city of Windhoek and one in Swakopmund. The detailed locations are as follows:[3] (1) Windhoek Khomasdal Facility; at the corner of Mahtma Ghandi and Hans Dietrich Genscher Street (2) Windhoek Eros Facility; along Heliodoor Street and (3) Swakopmund Facility; along Henties Bay Road.[3]
Overview
NOC is a privately owned cancer treatment, rehabilitation and research center, owned by Spitz Healthcare Investments, a Windhoek-based healthcare investment fund. The centre began serving the public with laboratory, pharmacy, radiation, chemotherapy, and oncology rehabilitative services in 2015. Before that, patients who needed radiation, had to travel to South Africa to receive those services. The center's digital linear accelerator, is the first in the country and also serves private patients referred from neighboring countries, including Angola.[4] As of 2016, the cancer centre maintained a private in-patient ward with 12 beds.[5]
Background
Namibia is a Southern African country, with a population of about 3 million as of 2024.[6] The most prevalent cancers in Namibia as of 2016 were (1) Skin cancer (2) Kaposi's sarcoma, which is HIV/AIDS related (3) Breast cancer (4) Prostate cancer (5) Cervical cancer and (6) Oral cavity cancer, in that order.[5]
NOC was established in 2015, to complement and relieve the Dr AB May Cancer Treatment Centre at Windhoek Central Hospital, the largest public hospital in the country. It is also intended to reduce the increasing number of private patients in Namibia seeking oncology services in neighboring South Africa.[5]
Staff
As of 2016, NOC employed about 30 staff members, including oncologists, nurses, physicians and therapists.[5] In 2019, the cancer centre recruited Dr. Lillian Gesami-Steytler, the first paediatric oncologist in the country, who also works as a consultant paediatric oncologist at the Ministry of Health and Social Services in Windhoek.[7]
See also
References
External links
