NGO’s bus to screen for breast cancer

This NGO has been screening women for breast cancer for the past four years.

Poorna Sudha Cancer Foundation, which owns a mobile onsite bus, has been conducting mammography and has so far camped at 475 locations in south India. It has screened nearly 12,000 women, of which 350 cases were found to have the disease.

Pratima Shankar, a programme manager, said it was a “rewarding experience” for the team to have travelled to remote areas of the state and neighbouring states in the bus and to meet women from all sections of society.

“Unlike the urban crowd, rural women are more aware of health and the need for screening and testing. Some of the health programmes aired on regional channels in the afternoon hours have created a lot of awareness. Rural women are more comfortable in approaching a bus like ours for a mammography test, unlike in other places where they have to wait longer,” added Pratima.

She said there were women who have undergone mastectomy of one of the breasts and have come back to get screened the other.

“Normally we advise married women with children to undergo the screening, but in one of our camps, we found a spinster to have developed lumps in her breast,” she said.

The NGO charges over Rs 600 for the test and the test is free for the poor.

Other than the NGO bus and the

Health festival inaugurated

The second edition of the Bangalore Health Festival was inaugurated at Palace Grounds on Thursday. The four-day festival will comprise interactive sessions with doctors and professionals in the healthcare sector. Most of the private hospitals have set up counters to educate people on the facilities they provide. Healthcare startups will also showcase latest technology and innovations at the festival. The Kidwai Hospital and Poorna Sudha Cancer Foundation will be conducting free cancer screening at the event, which will be on till Sunday.

screening facility with the Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology in the city, the rural women have very less accessibility. Though the Kidwai institute had made several representations to the government to have a similar screening bus and set up camps, the requests were never acknowledged.

Dr K B Linge Gowda, director of the institute said the Kidwai institute had a screening bus some 15 years ago. But it became dysfunctional.

“Besides the Kidwai institute, there are many private hospitals having the facility for mammography screening. I am not sure why the government has not responded to the requests for a screening bus,” he added.

BEL to donate Rs 2.2 cr

The Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) has funded Rs 2.2 crore for a cancer screening bus to be donated to the Kidwai hospital.

Besides mammography, the bus would also have facilities for X-ray and blood test.

Dr Linge Gowda said they have received the licence from the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) to have ultrasound machines. The bus will be launched in two to three months.

DH News Service