The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

HEALTH

Tele-counselling for AIDS next month
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

Over 2 lakh calls on AIDS hotline

The level of AIDS awareness in Chandigarh is very high (about 95 percent). Data collected from the Servants of People Society (SOPS) at Lala Lajpat Rai Bhavan, Sector 15 which runs the toll-free AIDS/HIV hotline — 1097 — shows that over 2,64,457 calls have already been received on the hotline since it was launched in 1999. This rush is in addition to the load of questions regarding AIDS/HIV being answered through another counselling service being offered in Sector 15 by SOPS. Called Dost, this service is provided at 543689. The load of questions is so much that often there is a dearth of counsellors to answer them.

Chandigarh, June 22
To upgrade the AIDS/HIV counselling infrastructure in the city, the UT State AIDS Control Society will soon introduce computerised tele-counselling at Lala Lajpat Rai Bhavan in Sector 15. The facility of direct telephone counselling is being made available for the first time since 1999 when the toll-free AIDS hotline, 1097, was introduced in the city under the guidelines of National AIDS Control Organisation .

To be provided by counsellors under the aegis of the Servants of People Society (SOPS), which is running the hotline, the service will also handle the rush of inquiries pertaining to the disease. The Union Ministry of Health has released the initial grant of about Rs 1.76 lakh. The Regional Computer Centre has been roped in for the purpose.

The project involves the provision of two additional telephone lines exclusively for AIDS counselling. Until now, the counselling being offered at Lajpat Rai Bhavan is based on the interactive voice response system, which has recorded questions and recorded answers. Eight most commonly asked questions have been fed into the computer along with the answers. The question (if among these eight) gets recorded and a recorded answer is sent back immediately.

The chairman of SOPS, Mr Onkar Chand, said the voice response system could handle only numbered queries. “Since many calls were being received, we felt the need to have additional facilities. People can call up directly.”

The step will improve the quality of counselling and its impact on the caller. Inquiries reveal that the callers are often looking for personal attention. Very often they are under tremendous stress and need a patient hearing. A counsellor clarifies, “When the patient is in a crisis, there is no time to wait. You must immediately talk him out of his stress. The current system of recorded questions and answers offers no room for striking a personal rapport with the caller, who is often full of guilt and requires motivation. The new system will help us offer a rich emotional back-up, which AIDS/HIV patients need desperately.”

As this system gets into operation, Chandigarh will fall in the league of the few cities providing tele-counselling for AIDS. Dr N.M. Sharma of the State AIDS Control Society, who is overseeing the project, says that the idea is to eliminate the element of anonymity attached with the interactive voice response system. “We want to offer direct counselling services for better results. Much of the required infrastructure is in place. We expect to launch the service by July.”

Relieving cancer patients of pain
Kulwinder Sandhu
Tribune News Service

Major-General RS Pannu (retd) Chandigarh, June 22
Not many people are aware that most cancers are accompanied by agonising pain that subjects patients to enormous discomfort and loss of self-esteem. Impelled by the harsh reality, Major-General RS Pannu (retd) raised a slogan “Together let’s take their pain away” in 1998 to create a new platform under the banner Global Cancer Concern India (GCCI) with the objective to relieve the pain of these suffering from cancer and promote the entire spectrum of cancer care, cure and prevention in a holistic fashion.

As a soldier, Major-Gen Pannu had witnessed pain, suffering and death during the 1971 Indo-Pak war when he commanded a brigade to Bangladesh. A retired cavalry man is in a better position to understand the suffering and pain of a human being when he is shot at and, on most of the occasions dies in pain due to lack of care. Cancer patients in India face the same fate — a slow and a painful death due to lack of care the absence of a scientifically proved cure.

In India, 80 per cent cancer cases are detected when the patient has already reached the terminal stage and the family spends its scarce resources in futile attempts to cure the fatal disease. At least, one million people are added to the list of cancer patients in India every year.

“India is one of the largest contributors to the rapid increase in the number of cancer cases and what is worse, it has the highest fatality rate of about 78 per cent in the world. This is primarily due to ignorance about preventive measures and symptoms that prevents timely detection”, said the General. Otherwise, with timely diagnosis 90 per cent of the cancer cases are curable. The General was in the city on a tour to the GCCI’s local branch and held a medical check-up camp for cancer in association with the State Bank of India.

Besides Chandigarh, the GCCI has its branch offices in another 11 cities across the country. As part of a major expansion plan, another five cities will be covered by the end of next year. The cities already covered under the programme include Delhi, Calicut, Gurgaon, Bhopal, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Kanpur, Gwalior, Mysore and Amritsar,

Prior to the GCCI’s inception, Global Cancer Concern, a British non-profit NGO was helping out to some extent in this field in India. They provided valuable experience and expertise for palliative cancer care in India as well as trained a nucleus of about 50 Indian doctors and nurses in the UK who later became the alumni group of the GCCI.

The GCCI has a joint venture with the PGI in Chandigarh. For the first time in North India, Continuing Medical Education (CME) on palliative care in cancer programme was jointly organised by the PGI and the GCCI from April 24-25, 1999. Since then, the GCCI has organised a number of camps in the city.

The NGO has also trained doctors and nurses working with cancer patients in the city. The training laid emphasis on palliative care as applicable to developing countries. The training aimed at improving communication skills, psychosocial issues and ethics, pain assessment and management, other symptoms in advanced cancer and setting up palliative care services.

In collaboration with Behgal Medical Clinic, SAS Nagar, it is also undertaking home care of terminal cancer patients in and around Chandigarh. “Forty cancer patients have died in the city during the past couple of years. Seven patients are under observation as part of the home care of terminal cancer patients programme with us”, said the General.

He said that GCCI’s mission was to combat cancer at all stages by seeking its prevention, and early detection and recognising palliative care as an integral part of cancer cure management so that cancer patients could lives with dignity as along as possible.

Piccadily XI win
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, June 22
Piccadily XI clinched the ‘A’ division trophy in the UT League Cricket Tournament played here today at the Sector 16 Cricket Stadium. In the final played today, they overpowered Leader Cricket Club by a narrow margin of eight runs.

Batting first, Piccadily XI made 242 runs for the loss of seven wickets. Rakesh scored 90 runs, while RP Singh made 67 runs. Amit Kakria scored 30 runs. In reply, Leader XI batsmen could not achieve the target in the stipulated overs and could score 234 runs for the loss of nine wickets.

Mr Virendra Singh, Adviser to the UT Administrator, gave away the prizes. Kapil Dev specially flew in from Delhi to watch the final. Later, Col A.S. Judge, president, UT Cricket Association, highlighted the efforts made by the UTCA for granting affiliation with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

Cricket tourney

Rawat Club won the Ist Jai Mata Di Trust day and night cricket match which concluded early this morning at the Sector 46 grounds. Rawat Club made 77 runs for the loss of four wickets while Pawan and Anoop scored 26 runs each. In reply, Talak XI were bundled out for 47 runs. Pawan claimed three wickets. Pawan was also adjudged man-of-the-match and given cash prize of Rs 10,000. Prizes were given by Mr Arun Rishi and Mr O.P. Arya.

Wrestler throws a challenge
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, June 22
Harish Tanwar of Khuda Lahora, who has all these years sweated on soil, has thrown an open challenge for anyone to have three minutes of freestyle wrestling with him. Harish (24) wants to put on test the hardwork he did in the past seven to eight years. He says, though initially he excelled in judo and weightlifting, but it was freestyle wrestling which caught his attention.

When asked why he did not go for amateur wrestling meet, Harish says with broken voice, ‘Bhaji’, there is no future and I want to make money since I belong to a poor family. Whatever efforts I did in wrestling, I would like to encash on that.

Harish, who now weighs 200 pounds and stands at 5 feet 10 inches, has set his aim to visit the USA to show his capabilities to the world. Harish said he has won many medals at various championships, but they were of no use to him.

When asked if his parents approve his going in for freestyle wrestling, Harish said they have full faith in my capability. I would bring glory and money to my parents, so why they would worry at all.

Harish was of the view that to learn the finer art of wrestling, it was advisable to practice at ‘akharas’ and now a days, very few wrestlers were getting the exposure of these Akharas.

Harish opined that unless a wrestler was assured of a secured career and money, the day was not far when many of them would turn to freestyle wrestling.