St. Jude India ChildCare Centres, in partnership with Tata Memorial Centre’s ACTREC, today inaugurated its largest ‘home away from home’ facility — a 12-storey, 234-unit complex in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai — in the presence of Dr. Sudeep Gupta, Director, Tata Memorial Centre, along with other senior doctors and team members from TMC and ACTREC. This facility will offer free and hygienic accommodation to over 700 families battling childhood cancer annually. The facility is expected to support an estimated 14,000 families over the next 20 years. 

Pediatric cancer treatment can extend for several years, requiring several rounds of follow-ups. For families travelling thousands of miles to Mumbai for treatment, finding a place to stay is a daunting challenge. Families at St. Judes are assured of a place to stay for as long as it takes for their child to be cancer-free.

The facility is a testament to St Judes’ commitment to ensure no child undergoing treatment for cancer is denied a safe and caring place to heal. It is expected to significantly help reduce treatment abandonment, attributed to a lack of affordable accommodation. According to an analysis by Tata Memorial Hospital, St. Judes centres have helped bring down the treatment abandonment rate to under 5% from over 30% in early 2000s. 

The facility will include a library, a classroom, a skilling centre and a centre of excellence to provide practical training to other NGOs to set-up and operate similar ‘home away from home’ centres across the country.

Manisha Parthasarathy, Chairperson, St. Jude India ChildCare Centres, said, “This centre at ACTREC, Kharghar, is more than a facility—it is a promise kept. No child in India should lose the fight against cancer because they have nowhere to sleep, eat, or heal with dignity. With 234 units under one roof, we are not just housing families, we are saving futures.”  

Dr. Sudeep Gupta, Director, Tata Memorial Centre, said, “Our partnership with St. Judes in Parel, Mumbai, led us to believe that safe accommodation is a very important accompaniment to medical treatment for children undergoing care. This is why we have partnered with St. Judes again and again. At ACTREC, we are building the largest pediatric cancer hospital in India, with around 350 beds where children and patients with blood cancers will be treated. Therefore, having a St. Judes Centre within the ACTREC campus in Kharghar was a natural corollary to establishing such a large hospital for pediatric cancer patients. It will be a unique demonstration of the fact that children referred from across India will not only receive medical treatment but will also have a place to stay — sometimes for months, or even longer.”

Dr. Pankaj Chaturvedi, Director, ACTREC, said, “The new block that we are building with St. Judes at ACTREC is a 12-storey building that will house 234 children along with their parents. This means more patients will be able to stay with us and receive timely treatment. Since they will be living within the campus, if any child falls ill in the middle of the night, the child and parents need only walk about 100 meters to reach the hospital building, where they can be attended to immediately. I can only foresee better outcomes and greater improvement in the overall well-being of both the children and their parents.”

St. Judes India in partnership with Tata Memorial Centre’s ACTREC inaugurated its largest centre in the presence of senior doctors from TMC and ACTREC & Founder, Board Members of St. Judes

About ACTREC

Established in 2001, ACTREC was envisioned as a centre that bridges scientific research with clinical applications. Its research wing, the Cancer Research Institute (CRI), was originally founded in 1952 in Parel and moved to ACTREC in 2001. The Clinical Research Centre (CRC) was added in 2005 as a 50-bed hospital, which has since grown from 130 beds in 2013 to its current capacity of 500-beds. Set across a lush 60-acre campus at the foothills of the Sahyadri range, ACTREC is one of India’s foremost institutions for cancer research and care.

About St. Jude India ChildCare Centres (St. Judes)

St. Jude India ChildCare Centres (St. Judes) provides a ‘home away from home’ for children undergoing cancer treatment. These children, accompanied by their parents, come from small villages and distant towns where cancer treatment is unavailable. St. Judes provides these families with free accommodation and holistic care, improving children’s chances of surviving cancer and returning to a healthy, happy life.

Founded in 2006 by Shyama and Nihal Kaviratne with a dedicated group of volunteers, St. Judes today works in partnership with leading cancer hospitals across 11 states, including Tata Memorial Hospital, AIIMS, and Tata Medical Centre. Currently, it operates 643 family units across Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Chennai, Vellore, Guwahati, Delhi, Varanasi, Vishakhapatnam, Bengaluru, and Muzaffarpur. Learn more: http://www.stjudechild.org