Roadmap will be ready for easy and cheap treatment of cancer
Jaipur: Additional Chief Secretary, Medical and Health Department, Mrs. Shubhra Singh said that in the last few years, among non-communicable diseases, serious diseases like cancer have spread rapidly and have emerged as the main causes of death. Our effort is to make its quality treatment cheap and accessible in the state. For this, the Medical and Health Department will prepare a roadmap with the cooperation of all concerned agencies.
Mrs. Singh was addressing the Road Map for Making Cancer Care Affordable and Accessible in India – Rajasthan Round Table program organized by FICCI on Friday. He said that cancer is such a complex disease, which adversely affects not only the patient but also his entire family. The entire family suffers from this disease due to expensive and lengthy treatment.
Additional Chief Secretary said that according to statistics, 17.9 percent deaths in the world, 9.9 percent in India and 9.3 percent in Rajasthan are due to cancer. He said that if cancer is identified early, the patient can be saved by treating it. He informed that the department is administering Hepatitis-B vaccine to prevent liver cancer. Efforts are being made to include the HPV vaccine in the universal vaccination program to prevent cervical cancer. He said that screening of three types of common cancers like oral, breast and cervical cancer is also being done regularly from district hospitals to sub-health centres. During the Vikas Bharat Sankalp Yatra, cancer screening of more than one crore people was done in the state.
Mrs. Singh said that a total of 8 cancer vans including one cancer van each at Ajmer, Bikaner, Bhatarpur, Kota, Jodhpur and Udaipur zone headquarters and two in Jaipur are being operated. Equipments for mammography, X-ray machine, colcoscopy, endoscopy are available in this van. He said that through CSR, efforts are being made to increase the number of these cancer vans and make them available up to the zone level. Cancer units are being operated in the districts. One medical officer and two staff nurses from the district hospitals have been posted in the cancer care units operating in the districts after getting special training from the Asian Cancer Institute, Mumbai. Apex Cancer Institute, State Cancer Institute, Bikaner and Jhalawar have tertiary cancer centers in Jaipur. Besides, PET scan facility is also available in Jaipur and Bikaner.
Additional Chief Secretary said that with the technical support of ICMR-NCDIR Bangalore, a policy regarding cancer is being prepared for certified data of cancer patients.
In the program, Mr. Rajgore and Mr. Vinit Gupta of FICCI Task Force on Cancer Care gave detailed information about the program. Health Care Services Shrimayi Chakraborty gave a presentation on Cancer Care Infrastructure in Rajasthan. In the end, FICCI Assistant Secretary Mr. Praveen Mittal expressed his gratitude.
