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| Reduce rich-poor gap in access to cancer treatment: Azad | | >>Emphasises research, awareness to take on killer disease | |
Srinagar, July 22- Calling upon the medical community to advise the government on how to invest resources for making better healthcare available to people, Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has highlighted the need for reducing the rich-poor gap in terms of access to treatment of diseases like cancer. He also emphasised the urgency for greater research and awareness to combat life threatening ailments.
“Scientists and researchers have a powerful voice that can help in ushering significant changes in our policies and reduce healthcare related inequities”, the Chief Minister said in back drop of the 5-day International Symposium on Genomic Instability and Cancer that began here today. He welcomed the idea of holding the symposium and said cross-fertilization of ideas and sharing of research and experience between local and foreign medical practitioners would help in better management and cure of the killer disease. He called for collating and consolidating the deliberations for devising right strategies to deal with the challenge of cancer.
The Chief Minister put much emphasis on research and creating awareness, saying the two pursued together would reduce the incidence of cancer. He said scientists and doctors had the onerous responsibility to create awareness among people about the causes, risk factors and treatment of the disease. He said while in cities people had access to modern means of information, the far-off villages and remote areas did not have this facility. The awareness campaigns, he said, need to be taken to these places also. He asked researchers, health professionals and the government to work together to make a responsive and scientifically efficient healthcare system available to the people. He said this alliance had worked well in developed countries where incidence of cancer had shown noticeable reduction. He said continuous research, effective preventive measures and up-gradation of healthcare facilities would reduce the incidence of cancer that causes 15 % of all deaths each year around the globe. Unless the scourge was effectively dealt with, the number of cancer cases would double in 20 years from one million at present, he warned.
Referring to the cancer scenario in J&K, the Chief Minister said it was a matter of serious concern that incidence of the disease was on the increase. He said medical studies showed that cancers of stomach, food pipe, ovary and breasts showed increased incidence in Kashmir. In addition, he said, leukemia or blood cancer was also quite common. He said the profile of cancer had changed with recent study putting the Valley at top in the country in lung cancer incidence. He said he was told that at SKIMS 200-300 lung cancer patients report every year for treatment.
The Chief Minister spoke about the priorities of his government in which, he said, up-gradation of healthcare facilities across the state received focused attention. He said cancer diagnostic and treatment expertise was in the process of continuous development and referred to the recently set up Regional Cancer Centre at SKIMS in Srinagar where integrated cancer care was available to facilitate management of cancer patients in the State. He said full fledged departments of Radiation Oncology and Medical Oncology were also functional at the Institute while the Department of Clinical Haematology took care of leukaemia patients. He said Oncology unit at Government Medical College, Srinagar was being up-graded with central assistance of Rs. 10 crore. In district hospitals also, he said, diagnostic facilities would be developed to facilitate early detection of cancer and its timely treatment. He said apart from opening new healthcare institutions at village level, district and state hospitals were in the process of infrastructure up-gradation and equipment modernization. He said central government was providing liberal assistance to improve healthcare scenario in Jammu & Kashmir and much headway had been made in this area. He referred to the Rs. 120 crore each central funding for the two government medical colleges in Kashmir and Jammu to upgrade these to the AIIMS level. Earlier this month, he said, the union health minister announced Rs. 50 crore each for up-gradation of Lal Ded Maternity Hospital, Srinagar and SMGS Hospital, Jammu.
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