Palliative care for cancer patients in 7 DHHs from Oct 2

Surjit Kumar Dhal, Bhubaneswar, Aug 17: The State Government has decided to offer palliative care for cancer patients in seven District Headquarters Hospitals (DHH)s and Capital Hospital from October 2- Gandhi Jayanti day.

The decision in this regard was taken at a high level meeting on cancer care, pulmonary & chest diseases chaired by Health & Family Welfare Minister Naba Kishore Das here on Saturday.

Secretary Health & FW Pramod Kumar Meherda, MD National Health Mission (NHM) Salini Pandit, MD OSMCL Yamini Sarangi and Joint Secretary  Guha Poonam Tapas Kumar were present at the meeting.

According to officials, chemotherapy for treatment of cancer patients under District Cancer Care program, now available in 26 places including Capital Hospital and RGH Rourkela, will also be available in six DHHs.

They said that feed back under “ MO SARAKAR” programme will be collected from patients by the Secretary and senior officials of the H&FW Department on a daily basis.

The meeting decided to initiate steps to expedite works to make pulmonary department of SCBMCH as Centre of Excellence, these officials said.