Centre aims to break barriers in childhood cancer care: DGHS
New Delhi: The Union government is committed to strengthening childhood cancer care and breaking barriers to improve survival outcomes for all affected children, L. Swasticharan, Deputy Director General of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said on Thursday.
Speaking at a workshop organised by the Indian Childhood Cancer Initiative (ICCI) to shape the roadmap towards a National Childhood Cancer Programme, Swasticharan described childhood cancer as the low-hanging fruit in terms of government programmes aimed at the survival of patients.
"The Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) programme already has a cancer component. The priority is that a childhood cancer patient should be detected early and ensuring financial support and medical care," he said, news agency IANS reported.
The Deputy Director General of DGHS emphasised learning from models developed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu for involving self-help groups and using financial support models related to Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY). Swasticharan also stressed post-survival support for cancer patients.
"All our heroic acts of curing a patient should continue and not end with survival. We need to take up survivor support by engaging community and multi-stakeholder coalitions," he said.
He further stressed that early detection is one of the most crucial factors in addressing childhood cancer.
"Setting up a registry for childhood cancer -- declaring it a notifiable disease -- is an issue. We are still working with ICMR on this. The aim it not to miss any patient," he said.
Bishnu Giri, Technical Officer (Cancer Control), WHO's South East Asian Region, said, "Expenditure on childhood cancer is not a fancy or wasteful expenditure, as there is huge monetary gain of $3 from every dollar spent on the disease. The gain is even more in developing nations, apart from social gains", reports IANS.
He suggested sustainable financing by leveraging flexible sources of funding to improve childhood cancer care and outcomes.
Ramandeep Arora, member of the governing council of ICCI, said that clinical facilities and medical expertise are now available in the country and what is needed is a little help from the government to expand outcomes on the ground.
"A National Childhood Cancer Programme and an MoU with the WHO to make India a partner and focus the country will further bringing in global best practices and technology to the country," he added.
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