Govt mulling free treatment for terminally ill poor

Govt mulling free treatment for terminally ill poor
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurates the programme 'Yes, we can: Fighting cancer with new weapons' organised by The Week with the support of Apollo Hospitals.

Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday said that the state government was in the process of drawing up an insurance scheme to provide free treatment to poor patients suffering from terminal illness. “There are people who avoid treatment just because they find the cost too prohibitive,” the chief minister said while inaugurating the programme 'Yes, we can: Fighting cancer with new weapons' organised by The Week with the support of Apollo Hospitals here.

As part of making cancer care more accessible, the chief minister said that state-of-the-art oncology equipment like the ones now found only in the Regional Cancer Centre and Malabar Cancer Centre were being installed in all the state-run medical colleges.

The RCC director, Dr Rekha Nair, said that early detection could prevent almost 50 per cent cancers in the state. “Around 50 percent of cancer cases are revealed very late. This is a clear sign that cancer awareness is very low in the state,” Dr Rekha Nair said. The chairman of the Apollo Group of hospitals, Dr Pratap Reddy, too said early detection could cure all non-communicable diseases like cancer and heart attacks.

Pinarayi said that Dr Reddy had promised that the Apollo Group could help the state in setting up telemedicine centres in the state. “To start with, we can implement the telemedicine project in one district,” the chief minister said. He added that the proposal would be handed over to the health department for prompt action. Telemedicine, by diagnosing and treating patients from a distance, could help in early detection.

The RCC director said that the annual incidence of cancer cases in the state was 66,000. She said that by 2026, it would go up to 96,000. According to her, smoking, alcoholism and dietary habits are the main causes that lead to cancer. Among men, lung and oral cavity cancer are the two most common types of cancer. Among women, it is breast cancer. The second most common cancer among women varies in the two halves of the state; while in the north it is colorectal cancer, in the south it is thyroid cancer.

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