RAH Cancer Centre Management Team

Clinical Director: Professor Dorothy Keefe
Nursing Director: Mr Graham Rumsby
Resource Accountant: Mr John McCandless
Administrative Manager: Ms Christine Jarrett

INTRODUCTION

• The RAHCC is South Australia’s single public hospital Comprehensive Cancer Centre, providing the full range of cancer treatments. It was created in the early 1980’s with the role of providing World’s best cancer care for all South Australians (and those within our outreach borders) underpinned by excellence in Research and Teaching.
• Staff from the RAHCC provide care not only to patients from Adelaide, but also to Port Pirie, Broken Hill, Darwin and Alice Springs through our Outreach Programs, supported by teleconferencing and regular visits.
• We train undergraduate students in Medicine, and all related disciplines, as well as post-graduate doctors, nurses and allied health workers. We have an active research program at both the Basic and Clinical levels, and are constantly striving to increase and improve these programs.
• The RAHCC has a particular interest in supportive care, and in ensuring the patient journey is of the highest quality.

Highlights:

• The RAHCC is building a Linear Accelerator at the Lyell McEwen Hospital to enable delivery of radiotherapy to the people of the northern suburbs closer to their community
• Seed and HDR brachytherapy programs are now up and running for prostate cancer treatment
• Dr Sid Selva has been appointed Director of Medical Oncology
• Dr Christopher Sweeney will be joining the Department of Medical Oncology in January 2008, as Director of Cancer Clinical Trials to establish an early phase trial program
• A major redevelopment program is underway to ensure that we have the best possible facilities for patient treatment to see us through until the new hospital is built. It involves relocating the administrative offices to level 4 of the East Wing so that we can double the size of the Lady Jessie Bradman Oncology Day Centre. This enables us to move almost all of the chemotherapy treatments to outpatients, and then increase the number of single side rooms in the Cancer Centre Wards for the treatment of our sickest patients, including those undergoing bone marrow transplantation.
• Professor Tim Hughes (Haematology) continues his success in CML research with the awarding of two prestigious prizes in the past year
• The Cancer Network is beginning its work to realign cancer services across the state, and Professor Dorothy Keefe has been appointed Deputy Chairman of the Cancer Network Steering Committee. Many other RAHCC staff are involved in this work.

Activity:

Our activity continues to grow both generally and in site specific areas such as allogeneic transplants and radiotherapy.