With a view to reduce premature deaths due to cancer, the Himachal Pradesh government has started Cancer Care Units in district hospitals, except Shimla, Sirmaur and Lahaul Spiti. Under the national health mission, services of access to chemotherapy have been started at in the District Hospitals and Civil Hospital (CH) Rampur and CH Rohru.
“Cancer Care Unit will also be started at Civil Hospital Palampur after training of doctors,” Director of Health services, Baldev Thakur said. The governments around the world have committed to achieve Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. One of these goals is to reduce the premature deaths caused by non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by one-third by 2030 and cancer is one of such diseases, he said.
He said most of the patients generally present themselves to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment when the disease has spread regionally or in an advanced stage. The overall proportion of patients visiting early (localised stage) is only 12.5 percent. Reduction of cancer morbidity by 2030 would be an unrealistic goal, unless drastic measures are taken for its holistic control, he said, adding 30 cancer drugs have been included in the essential drugs list.