Narayana Health announced the launch of Rural ‘Cancer Surveillance Program’ in partnership with Mazumdar Shaw Medical Foundation. The program launched by Dr Devi Shetty, Chairman, Narayana Health and Dr Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairman and MD, Biocon will work towards creating awareness and conducting preliminary screening of head and neck cancers in several rural pockets of Karnataka. The foundation of the programme is based on the statistics that highlights the huge urban-rural healthcare divide that exists in our country.
The first phase of the program will be initiated across three villages of Atebele, Anekal and Gigini in Karnataka, which will be led by the Department of Head and Neck Oncology at Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Center at NH Health City. The focus will be to educate the community at large about the early signs and symptoms of mouth and throat cancer as its prevalence in rural India is increasing owing to the tobacco chewing habits.
Dr Shetty said, “Over 70 per cent of India’s population lives in rural India but have access to only one-third of the hospital beds. Also, diagnosing and treating head and neck cancer requires specialist doctors. Since, 80 per cent of the specialist doctors live in urban parts of the country catering to about 20 per cent of the population, early diagnosis of this disease in rural India is difficult. Thus, leading to a worrisome situation that close to 75 per cent of cancers are diagnosed only in its stage IV resulting in poor rate of treatment and survival. This initiative is a step towards reaching out to the population living in villages to ensure that everyone has access to timely diagnosis and quality healthcare.”
The programme aims to reach out to the rural community, educating the people about the early warning signs of cancers, screening for common cancers and undertaking preventive measures. Dr Moni Kuriakose, Head of Department – Head & Neck, Oncology, Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Centre said, “Awareness levels among people residing in Urban India is higher than in rural parts and thus detection of the diseases is early unlike in rural India. However, this programme aims to bridge this gap and we aim to roll-out this by our team of doctors who will be going to rural areas. This will facilitate early diagnosis and better outcome of the treatment among patients in rural India.
EH News Bureau