President to open Sri Shankara cancer centre on December 30

Sri Shankara National Centre for Cancer Prevention and Research, a unit of Sri Shankara Cancer Foundation, will be formally inaugurated by President Pranab Mukherjee on December 30.

The formal inauguration of the centre, which aims at reducing the incidence of cancer and improvise the outcome of treatment, will be held at National High School Grounds, Basavanagudi.

The foundation would make an attempt to reach out to rural masses through the project. Dr B S Srinath, managing trustee, Sri Shankara Cancer Foundation, said most private hospitals are clustered together in large cities and are expensive, making it difficult for rural patients to access them.

“In India, cancer will double in next 10 years. Establishing cancer hospitals is expensive, and lack of trained manpower poses additional problems. A multidimensional effort is necessary to address this challenge of glaring inequalities by establishing an institution, which through its comprehensive outreach programmes, would direct its energy to understand the problems faced by the target population and work towards prevention of cancer. The institution will train manpower drawn from the milieu of that area to integrate and work along with people to understand their lifestyle habits and psychological behaviour,” he added.

This centre has five wings - Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Human Behaviour Sciences, Social and Economic Studies, cancer prevention, and cancer research, which would work towards reducing the incidence of cancer.

The Department of Community Oncology would reach people through mobile cancer centres equipped with diagnostic equipment such as mammography, X-ray, ultrasound, dental diagnostic centre and laboratory.  The foundation aims at screening at least 11 lakh people to begin with. Two Mobile Clinics would reach out to people in Ramanagaram district covering 878 villages.

Four doctors, six nurses, drivers, computer operators on board these Mobile Clinics. Senior cancer specialists would connect with people through Tele-Oncology network.

A few patients who would be identified from the camps would also be given treatment at concessional cost at the Shankara Cancer Hospital and Research Centre.