Nuapada to roll out State’s first cancer screening

The New Indian Express (Bhubaneswar), Jan 5, 2013

By SN Agragami - BHUBANESWAR

05th January 2013 12:56 PM

Nuapada is poised to become the first district of the State to roll out cancer screening of its population under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes,Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS).

The medical personnel of the District Headquarters Hospital (DHH) and sub-centre level are receiving specialised training on early detection of the disease. The first batch of the doctors from the district would undergo training at the Acharya Harihar Regional Cancer Centre (AHRCC), Cuttack, this month.

A five-day curriculum has been devised for training the medical personnel in recognising the key signs and symptoms of cancer at the first point of contact. Those suspected of having the disease will be sent to the DHH for preliminary diagnostics and then referred to AHRCC for confirmation and treatment. The doctors of the DHHs will also be trained in administration of chemotherapy at the day care centres that are coming up in the NPCDCS districts.

The strategy for early diagnosis of cancer involves screening of persons over 30 years of age at the first point of contact with any healthcare facility from the PHC level to the DHH. The medical officers would clinically screen every patient for key signs and symptoms along with conducting an assessment of risk on the basis of behavioural patterns like addiction of tobacco and alcohol.

 “Special camps being held for screening people at the community level for non- communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension will now also include cancer,” State Nodal Officer for NPCDCS Dr PKB Patnaik said.

The Government has already started bearing the entire cost of diagnosis, treatment, medicines and even transportation of cancer patients referred to the AHRCC from the NPCDCS districts of Nuapada, Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur and Balangir.

As many as 40 patients have benefited from the programme under which each of the districts has provided ` 4 lakh to AHRCC as corpus fund to extend free treatment.

“An exclusive NPCDCS help desk is soon going to be established on PPP mode at the AHRCC to aid the patients referred from the five districts. The objective is to ensure prompt assessment, admission and treatment for the referral patients and also to protect them from falling in hands of touts,” Dr Patnaik said.

The community screening of population in  the five districts has, in fact, revealed some very alarming statistics on public health.

Over nine per cent of the 6.70 lakh persons screened have been found to have diabetes while incidence of hypertension is as high as 4 per cent.