Viva–University Children’s Cancer Centre
The Viva–University Children’s Cancer Centre is housed in Ward 88, Kent Ridge Wing, National University Hospital. It is a one-stop facility complete with inpatient wards as well as outpatient consultation and day therapy areas. This facility is the seat of the St. Jude–Viva International Outreach Program.
Distinguished Visitors Program
Visiting experts, who are renowned world authorities in pediatric oncology and stem cell transplantation, will be invited regularly to share their knowledge and experience with members of the Children’s Cancer Centre and medical practitioners from the region.
Clinical Research Programs
One of Viva’s foremost aims is to improve cure rates for childhood cancers by encouraging research and enabling novel therapies through the strategic setting up of critical facilities. Through our local expert doctors and researchers, we will quickly translate and replicate new discoveries from St. Jude and other top centers into therapies for Asian children. In Singapore, our small families limit the chances of finding a matched donor for stem cell transplantation; Viva will thus enhance the local capability of alternative stem cell transplantation using cord blood or haploidentical transplantation from parents. Through this program, we hope that more children who lack a matched donor can be offered a chance of cure.
St. Jude–Viva International Outreach Program
This program aims to develop regional centers of excellence in the ASEAN countries by identifying, negotiating, and helping to coordinate the setting up of these centers. This program will provide hands-on and systematic training of foreign doctors and nurses from the region, conducted at NUH for one to three years. The training program will comprise a core team of up to two doctors and four nurses, each team being trained in Singapore and deployed at their respective centers. The centers will establish their own pediatric oncology programs and support themselves through fundraising by their local charities.
St. Jude–Viva Forum in Pediatric Oncology
This annual forum, now in its second year, will gather top doctors and scientists from around the world and provide a platform in Asia for them to exchange information and collaborate in research. The three strategic areas of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, and cellular therapy will be the first areas of focus for Viva.
VIVA–UNIVERSITY CHILDREN’S CANCER CENTRE
Treating children with cancer is not simply a matter of giving them the right injections! There is obviously much more to it. Having a child with cancer is a great disruption to the whole family life. Such children and their families need much help, and we believe that we should try to help them as much as we can. This includes providing a holistic, healing and clean environment for them.
Thus, we are most grateful to all the people who have provided their kind support towards the establishment of the Viva–University Children’s Cancer Centre. We are especially appreciative of Singapore Totalisator Board, Mrs Christina Ong, Ian Ferguson Foundation and Far East Organization who funded the establishment of an affordable, holistic, one-stop Children’s Cancer Centre in NUH.
We want the Viva–University Children’s Cancer Centre to be very child-friendly! From the moment you step into the centre, we hope you will notice much thought (as well as effort) has gone into making this a reality. We want it to be bright, cheerful and colorful with wall murals and play equipment. We hope that the children will love the marine aquarium at the entrance, and will be fascinated and entertained by the marine fishes and corals!
The centre, located at Level 8 in the Kent Ridge Wing, NUH, has three main sections:
Outpatient Consultation Clinics
There are three outpatient clinics.
Blood tests, which are done in the Procedure Room, can be rapidly tubed down to the laboratories, while children are kept busy either playing with toys or doing art work with CCF volunteers in the Outpatient Play Area.
After consultation, chemotherapy orders are reconstituted fresh in the on-site Pharmacy to be administered in the Day Therapy Centre. Medications are dispensed on site by dedicated oncology pharmacists.
Day Therapy Centre
The spacious Day Therapy Centre has nine beds, each with its own television monitor, for patients receiving chemotherapy or undergoing other procedures. We provide beds for the children rather than chairs, so that they can have proper rest. For young children, the beds will become their private clean playground. There is a dedicated general anesthesia procedure room with complete monitoring facilities.
Inpatient Centre
This consists of 17 inpatient beds with 5 stem cell transplant rooms and 3 isolation rooms. The isolation rooms are specially designed with infection prevention in mind, with dedicated negative pressure and double-door isolation.
Stem Cell Transplantation Suite
The stem cell transplant suite comprises five individually HEPA-filtered, double-door, positive pressure rooms with a dedicated HEPA-filtered exercise corridor, play area and nursing counter. Severely immunocompromised children undergoing stem cell transplantation no longer need to be confined to their own rooms, but will be able to move around, exercise and play in the comfort of an exceedingly clean environment. Parents can interact with and support each other during the period of transplant.
St. Jude–Viva Program
We are proud to have a state-of-the-art centre with the convenience of having everything located in one area. This enables the medical and nursing staff to have their daily routine from ward rounds to outpatient clinics to departmental meetings transition smoothly from one to another.
The multimedia, broadband, Internet-enabled conference room provides a venue for presentations, multidisciplinary meetings, family meetings, teleconferencing and education sessions. Weekly teleconferencing meetings with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and St. Jude–Viva Outreach partners in Davao and Manila, Philippines, are held with close input from everyone.
Viva Foundation hopes, through this centre, to provide not only the highest standard of clinical care for hematology and oncology patients, but also an environment of teaching, learning and research for the St. Jude–Viva Outreach Program for Asia, and a leading center for clinical research in pediatric oncology and pediatric stem cell transplantation.
