Welcome to Inpatient Cancer Services
(located on the third floor of the hospital in Department 330)
Cancer patients may require inpatient care for:
- Certain chemotherapy requires inpatient support;
- Chemotherapy-related complications;
- Cancer-related complications.
Certain diagnosis such as:
- Patients with acute leukemia often need to receive chemotherapy in hospital because the type of chemotherapy given takes several days and can cause serious complications that require close monitoring.
- Patients with soft tissue sarcoma are often admitted for chemotherapy for similar reason.
Our In-patient Oncology Unit is located on the third floor Department #330 which is separated into two stations. Nurses in the Unit are trained for administering chemotherapy.
Side effects of chemotherapy:
- Low blood count: Chemotherapy can cause low blood counts and hence infection.
- Fever: Patients can develop high fever 7 to 14 days after chemotherapy because their white blood cells, especially a type of white blood cell called neutrophil, become very low which make them susceptible to infection.
- Many patients develop fever but without a clear source of infection. But some patients can develop pneumonia, urinary traction infection, or even sepsis (The presence of bacteria or their toxins in the blood or tissues).
- Infection could be life-threatening in a patient with abnormally low white blood cells and requires urgent intervention.
If you develop a high fever 7 days after chemotherapy you may be developing an infection and need to call your doctor immediately or come to the Emergency Room right away.
- Chemotherapy can also cause other serious complications such as severe vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration and others.
Cancer-related complications.
Cancer can cause many complications such as :
- pain (back pain, abdominal pain, e.g.)
- difficulty breathing (common in lung cancer or other cancers that have spread to lungs)
- vomiting (cancer that causes blockage of bowel)
- neurological symptoms such as:
- headache
- weakness of extremities
- loss of balance (common in patient with brain tumor or cancer that has spread to brain or spine), and others.
You may be admitted to hospital for one or more of these symptoms.
You will be under the care of our specially trained nurses, Hospital Specialist, Residents, as well as your oncologist or hematologist.
Inpatient Cancer Information and Staffing
