Many new cancer facilities coming up in state

BHUBANESWAR: Cancer care gets a major focus in many government and private health facilities in the state. Many hospitals have come up with new facilities to treat more and more cancer patients.
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik has recently announced that Odisha will have state-of-the-art facilities for cancer care in the next two to three years. The state has been running a district cancer chemotherapy programme. It is planning to upgrade existing radiotherapy units in the district level. If any district headquarters hospital does not have this facility, such units will be created.
The state government has already started extension work of the Acharya Harihar Post Graduate Institute of Cancer (AHPGIC) at Cuttack. Now the institute has 280-bed, but it will be upgraded to a 500-bed hospital with 20 ICU beds. It will have a PET CT, new day care centre, Brachytherapy, LINAC machine for the treatment of cancer patients.
“We will install all these machines by November. We have set a target to complete the hospital extension work by the end of this year. After this, many cancer patients will get benefitted. It will boost cancer care in the state,” said Lalatendu Sarangi, director of AHPGIC Cuttack.
Foundation stones have been laid for a 750-bed Bagchi-Sri Shankara Cancer Hospital and Research Centre along with 110-bed Bagchi-Karunashraya Palliative Care Centre in the capital city. It will help the capital city to become a leading centre of the country in cancer care and palliative services.
AIIMS Bhubaneswar has a well-equipped cancer treatment facility. Most of the time, beds of this hospital are filled up because of affordability. Besides, the state government is coming up with a cancer hospital at Bargarh with an estimated cost of Rs 90 crore. Apollo Hospitals is also coming up with a new cancer care unit in the city, sources said.
More than 50,000 cancer cases are being identified every year in the state. AHPGIC, the only cancer hospital of the state government, gets a heavy load of patients. Though private hospitals are also providing the service, poor people depend on government setups.
Ashutosh Mohapatra, founder of Sai Institute of Gastroenterology and Liver Sciences, Bhubaneswar, said gastric cancer remains one of the deadly diseases with poor prognosis and remains the fourth most diagnosed cancer and the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Early detection and diagnosis decide the treatment success, he added.
“In the last five months, we have successfully detected five patients with early gastric cancer. Improved detection of early gastric cancer can lead to more minimally invasive treatments,” said Mohapatra.
Dilip Kumar Parida, head of Radiotherapy, AIIMS Bhubaneswar, said the state should have a register of total incidence of cancer cases every year to plan for treatment of patients. “After getting a clear picture of cases, it will be easy to find out which place is contributing more cases. Keeping the cases in mind, the government can open hospitals and screening camps in those areas. Another major thing is early detection of cancer through screening camps in the state. Palliative care units for cancer patients are also needed,” he added.
He said consolidated effort is needed to help cancer patients. Apart from infrastructure, trained personnel are needed for treatment of the patients, he added.
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