PESHAWAR: A memorandum of Understanding was signed yesterday between United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital Peshawar. The ceremony was held in SKMCH&RC building where representative for the UN refugee commission in Pakistan, Ms. Ruvendrini Menikdiwela and CEO SKMCH&RC Dr. Faisal Sultan signed the document. At this moment prominent members from SKMCH&RC and UNHCR were also present. At the arrival at SKMCH&RC Peshawar, the distinguished guests from UNHCR were brought around the different facilities of the hospital. A briefing was given to them about state of the art cancer treatment facilities being provided over there to the underprivileged cancer patients in Peshawar. As per this MoU ,UNHCR will provide state of the art cancer cure treatment machines to SKMCH& RC Peshawar. These machines include Linear Accelerators (High Energy) Varian Vital Beam, CT Simulator 4D Toshiba Aquiline Machine, Varian ARIA 15 (Eclipse) Treatment Planning System and Peripherals (Immobilizations, PTW Dosimetry). Speaking on the occasion representative from UNHCR said “I am here for the first time and very happy to see the world class cancer treatment and equipment’s available in SKMCH & RC”. Talking about the MoU, she added, purpose of this MoU is to facilitate Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital in providing free cancer treatment to the poor cancer patients belonging to different areas of Pakistan. Responding to a question, Ms. Menikdiwela said, these equipments from UNHCR are not only meant to provide treatment to Afghan refugees, we hope people belonging to different areas of Pakistan will also be benefited from this. She further added that Pakistan is hosting large number of refugees from neighboring country Afghanistan, which must be appreciated. Speaking on the occasion CEO SKMCH&RC Dr. Faisal Sultan said that MoU is a step to equip the Peshawar hospital with the latest technology in cancer treatment. In Peshawar we are facing rapid increase in patient turn over, in 2017 we noticed almost 40% escalations in this regard, he said. He further said “this situation needs more strategic support from local or International community. He showed his gratitude to the UNHCR in this behalf and hoped this kind of help and cooperation will continue in the future as well.” Published in Daily Times, April 5th 2018.