V Shanta, 93, doyenne of cancer care in the country, senior oncologist and chairperson of the Adyar Cancer Institute died early on Tuesday morning.
Sources at the Cancer Institute said Dr V Shanta was rushed to hospital after she complained of chest pain on Monday at about 9 pm.
She had a massive block which could not be removed. Her end came at about 3.55 am, said a senior oncologist at the institute.
Her body has been moved to the old Cancer Institute premises, which she helped build along with her mentor Dr. Krishnamoorthy. She played an important role along with Dr Krishnamurthi in developing the Cancer Institute from a cottage hospital of 12 beds to a major comprehensive Cancer Centre of national and international stature.
The Cancer Institute is an institution that offers high quality cancer care to all segments of society, irrespective of their capacity to pay, making state of the art treatment available to all. It has a unique graded payment model, based on capacity to pay — those who could not afford it, were provided free treatment.
Her work won several awards, including the Magsaysay Award, the Padma Shri, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan.
Dr V Shanta was active till her hospitalisation. During the pandemic, she expressed concern about the new challenges to healthcare that was brought by the lockdown, the institute said.
Hailing from a family of Nobel laureates — Sir CV Raman and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, V Shanta graduated (MBBS) in 1949, DGO in 1952 and MD, in Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1955.
In April 1955, she joined the fledgling Cancer Institute, established in 1954 by the Womens’ Indian Association Cancer Relief Fund, as its Resident Medical Officer in preference to the Assistant Surgeon’s Post in the Women & Children’s Hospital, Chennai, to which she had been selected by the Madras Public Service Commission. She was the force behind the first cancer registry in India and pioneered in several aspects, including initiating the first screening program in India for cancer besides establishing the first paediatric oncology unit at the institute, he said.
