Hyderabad: Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan has inaugurated the 42nd Indian Cooperative Oncology Network (ICON) conference here on Friday.
Speaking on the occasion, the Governor said inspite of great awareness created among citizens and availability of advanced technology, it is disheartening to note that the country is facing many major challenges with increase of non communicable and lifestyle diseases.
Unfortunately we tend to ignore our health as well as warning signs, assuming that nothing will happen to us. When a small lump or unusual bleeding is allowed to fester, it has the ability to spread. A potentially curable disease quickly becomes difficult to treat or even incurable. This is the big health care problem facing us today, she said.
The Governor appreciated the theme of the ICON conference “Patient Centric approach” which she said exactly what the union government is propagating. She added, under Ayushman Bharath and other similar state govt schemes, we are extending extensive free healthcare cover to the needy and underprivileged fellow Indians.
Patients are able to get up to Rs 5 lakhs worth of free treatment for cancer under Ayushman Bharat. This covers the cost of the most sophisticated radiation and chemotherapy treatment and thus most of the citizens are able to fight against cancer without spending a single paisa from their pockets.
Dr. Soundararajan underlined the importance of empowering family physicians, doctors at primary health care centres and others to pickup early signs of cancer. Use hub and spoke model to develop cancer centres accessible at the district level and added to make cancer a notifiable disease.
Chairman, ICON Dr C Sairam, Senior oncologists Dr Kalluri Subramanyam, Dr S. Chandrasekhar, and other delegates attended. (INN)