New Delhi: The Parliamentary Committee of Health and Family Welfare in its 147th report tabled in the Parliament on Friday took cognizance of the various challenges being faced in the prevention of cancer and agreed with the fact that most of the people with cancer, prefer approaching the private sector, due to low trust and inadequate public cancer care services.
The Committee recommended the Ministry to work actively towards bridging the trust deficit in public health institutions by improving the overall healthcare infrastructure of the public health facilities.
The Committee, headed by Rajya Sabha member Bhubaneswar Kalita, feels that the need of the hour is to upgrade existing cancer care facilities and expand the same to the areas which have high incidence of cancer cases especially in the North-Eastern Region so that the patients get access to quality and cost-effective cancer care.
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The Committee further believes that intensive information, education and communication (IEC) activities are required to sensitise the people about the danger of the cancer disease and the advantages associated with its early detection through screening.
“To increase the awareness, the Government should organise block-level camps, programmes at schools, colleges, universities and also start mass radio and media campaigns (like it did to eradicate Tuberculosis, polio, etc) for spreading cancer awareness in the general population regarding preventive care for cancer," the Committee stated in its report.
In its action taken report, the Health Ministry stated that the Centre implements strengthening of tertiary cancer care centres facilities scheme in order to enhance the facilities for tertiary care of cancer.
“19 State Cancer Institutes (SCIs) and 20 Tertiary Care Cancer Centres (TCCCs) have been approved under the said scheme. So far, fifteen of these SCIs and TCCCs are functional. There is also focus on oncology in its various aspects in case of new AIIMS and many upgraded institutions under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojna (PMSSY). Setting up of National Cancer Institute at Jhajjar (Haryana) and second campus of Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Kolkata are also steps in this direction,” the Ministry stated.
The Ministry informed that Assam Cancer Care Foundation, a joint venture of Government of Assam and Tata Trusts, is executing a project called Distributed Cancer Care Model to build South Asia's largest affordable cancer care network with 17 cancer are hospitals spread across the State.
“Under it, different levels of facilities were planned across the state of Assam so that people can access the cancer care facilities with less than four hours of travel. The mission behind the model was to reduce the mortality and morbidity due to cancer through awareness, prevention and early detection by taking care closer to people’s homes,” the Ministry informed.
The Ministry further informed that a new Human Papillomavirus Vaccine (HPV) vaccine domestically manufactured is under the approval process of the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) for market authorisation. The Committee was told that the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) recently granted market authorisation to the Serum Institute of India (SII) to manufacture indigenously developed India's first Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus vaccine (qHPV) against cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the second most frequent cancer among women between 15 and 44 years of age with a high death ratio in the country.
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