The word has become one of dread: Cancer. The disease has become so prevalent that everyone, in some way, whether direct or indirect, is affected by it.

The old boundaries are disappearing. Cancer is no longer something that afflicts the elderly as they approach the twilight of their lives. Young people are being struck by the disease: Breast cancer, prostate cancer, leaukamia, bowel cancer... the list goes on and on. Our lifestyles are contributing towards the ever increasing cancer incidence (that is also rising among younger people). The figures are shocking. One in four people knows someone who has cancer. Here in Malta, 2,000 new cancer cases are discovered every year. Parliamentary Secretary Chris Fearne said that there are six cases every day and one every four hours that are discovered every day in our society. Every year, some 700 people die of cancer.

But there is hope. Medicine is advancing at a fast pace and cancer treatment is improving all the time. The same is happening here in Malta. In a rare show of consensus, the new Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre’s Outpatients Department was yesterday opened. Both the government and the opposition agreed that this was a milestone in Maltese history and should ensure better treatment, survival rates and dignity for patients.

The €52m project, 85% funded by the EU, will not be cheap to run, but it features the latest equipment that is needed to help fight off cancer.

This includes new radiation therapy machines and other apparatus which will allow for certain tumours that could not be treated in Malta before to now be treated here.

In the past, patients (sometimes with subsidiary help) used to have to fly out for surgical procedures. The government said it had spent some €20m on the equipment – but was glad to do so. Cancer is a slow process. Sometimes victims recover, and sometimes they do not. But the process is what is truly hard. It can take months and years and while the greatest battle has to be fought by the patient, their immediate family, their friends and their extended families often have to carry the scars on into life.

While the Health Sector has been plagued by problems, no one can deny that successive governments, this one included, have poured a lot of money in, with all arguing that people’s health comes first. True, problems still persist, but it is clear that each Ministry that has been in charge of it has done all it can to improve the situation both in the short and the long term.

Cancer will always be a terrible disease that claims lives without discrimination. But in having a modern hospital, people will get the medical and personal treatment that they deserve. It will give each and every patient more of a fighting chance.