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ShareMumbai: While his predecessor, Anbumani Ramadoss, believed in fighting cancer by battling tobacco, Union health and family welfare minister Ghulam Nabi Azad is focusing more on community-based prevention and control strategies.
On Sunday, the minister announced several initiatives and generous monetary allocations for the country's fight against the killer disease. Azad said a budgetary allocation of Rs2,400 crore had been made under the National Cancer Control Programme during the 11th five-year plan. This is at least 10 times more than that was allocated under the previous plan.
The focus, the minister stressed, would be on community-based cancer prevention and control strategies.
Azad also announced a unique scheme for patients below the poverty line under the 'Health Minister's Cancer Patient Fund' to reduce the financial burden of undergoing treatment.
The fund has been established by the government with Rs100 crore as seed money. State governments are also expected to contribute to this fund.
A cancer patient below the poverty line can get financial support of up to Rs1 lakh for treatment at any of the country's 27 regional cancer centres and 40 oncology institutes that have been set up under the National Cancer Control Programme or at any public health facility.
The health ministry is also in the process of establishing OncoNET (India), a network connecting 27 regional cancer centres and 100 peripheral centres to facilitate telemedicine services and continued medical education, Azad said.
The minister promised to look into the demands of doctors to increase the syllabus content on oncology at the MBBS level. The content is quite low at present.
In the city to inaugurate the Women's Cancer Initiative-Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital's 'mobile outreach project', Azad said it was a matter of concern that about two-thirds of cancer patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage when it is well-established that cancer can be treated if diagnosed early.
As part of the project, a mobile van will move across Chembur, Govandi, Mankhurd and Trombay to offer free screening for breast cancer, cervical cancer, and oral cancers and to undertake awareness programmes for people from the lower-income groups in these areas.
"We also use the data collected at camps over a period of five years to determine the extent to which early intervention helps," said Dr Sudeep Gupta, associate professor of oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital, adding that breast cancer has become the number one cancer in all four metros in the country.
While breast cancer is on the rise among the affluent, cervical cancer is seen to be rising among the lower strata of society. The former, Dr Gupta said, could be because of late marriage, late pregnancy, and reduced breastfeeding while the latter could be caused by early marriage, multiple pregnancies, and lack of hygiene.
