Olivia's dream takes shape in Heidelberg!

Thanks to Susanna Klemmer for reporting on this.

WITH a touch of Dr Strangelove, the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Centre in Heidelberg is beginning to take shape.
One of the most important parts of the $186 million facility, the bunkers that will house the state-of-the-art linear accelerators that will blast cancer with radiation, are almost completed.
Professor Chris Hamilton, who heads up the radiation and oncology unit, said the four bunkers and the accelerators - worth $4 million each - would allow more patients to be treated.
“It looks a bit like a big CAT scanner and can direct a beam directly at the tumour without affecting surrounding healthy tissue,” Prof Hamilton said.
“It will be used to help cure cancer and to relieve the pain and symptoms associated with cancer.”
The machines, which emit powerful beams of radiation, have to be sealed in specially-designed bunkers at the base of the centre.
“There needs to be a lot of protection because we don’t want the X-ray leaking into areas inhabited by patients,” he said. “You need to have it protected by between 1.2m and 1.8m thick of concrete.”
It won’t have the sterile, surgical feel often associated with facilities designed to fight cancer, he said, but would be a warm, comfortable area where treatment would be done “a bit slower and more gently”. Prof Hamilton said the key to the centre was the notion of grouping together services dedicated to beating cancer, and services providing emotional and physical support to patients and cancer survivors.
“At the Repat and other hospitals you have patients traipsing all over the campus to go to various sites for treatment,” he said. “Sometimes you will have to travel across several suburbs for different treatment. This will have a one-stop shop feel.”
When completed, the cancer centre will accommodate 92 beds.
It would be home to the largest site of the international Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research to develop innovative cancer therapies, Prof Hamilton said.