No matter the time of day, the visitors in queue at Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH) always have a discomfiting poise. Most have travelled long distances; but the group seems curated by one illness, cancer. An illness that can be manageable, like a chronic disease, but often isn’t.
In 2012, the leadership at TMH, the largest cancer centre in the country, took a decisive step to address parts of the colossal task at hand. Having brought existing centres in Guwahati, Chandigarh and Visakhapatnam into its fold that year, it set about framing common standards, setting up an IT platform, and sharing best practices—the entire structure for a functional network.