District hospitals to get chemotherapy units

Samaan Lateef

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 6

The J&K Government’s first draft of the health policy has recommended chemotherapy units in every district with referral linkages to regional cancer centres.

The proposal has come after reports of increasing incidences of cancer in the state and failure to screen the patients at the primary healthcare level.

“The health policy envisages a provision of day care chemotherapy units in every district hospital with referral linkages to the regional cancer centre of Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) and Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Jammu,” reads the draft health policy, a copy of which is with The Tribune.

It says the state annually reports thousands of cancer cases, with the prevalence of lung, esophagus and stomach at the top in Kashmir.

J&K has one regional cancer centre at the SKIMS, Kashmir division, and one at the GMCH, Jammu, while the government has approved a tertiary cancer care centre each for Kupwara, Kishtwar and Udhampur. The cancer centres at the SKIMS and The GMCH need to be strengthened to cater to the whole population in the respective regions, it said. “These centres shall form a network with other such centres in the state to strengthen cancer care and management,” reads the policy.

It envisages population-based cancer registry for the state, one in Jammu and one in Kashmir to keep a track of cancer cases in the state.

“The health policy also envisages a radiotherapy unit each in north and south Kashmir so that the patients are provided with comprehensive cancer services near to their homes, since expenditure on cancer treatment is exorbitant and catastrophic,” it added.

It further says the incidence of gastrointestinal tract cancers was very high in Kashmir, especially stomach cancer, and needs special attention.

As per hospital-based data received from the SK Institute of Medical Sciences, Soura, the incidence of cancer cases in Kashmir is 75 cases per lakh population while at the national level it is 100 cases per lakh population.

Under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke, the Directorate of Health Services, Kashmir, (DHSK) in early 2012 started providing free chemotherapy and other anti-cancer drugs to the patients in rural areas.

Official documents reveal that the doctors of the DHSK detected 217 cancer patients in 2017 of 73,230 people screened for various non-communicable diseases, which were responsible for 60 per cent of deaths in the state. “We provided 70 free chemotherapy doses to these patients while many of them were referred to the SKIMS, Soura, for sophisticated surgeries,” a senior official of the DHSK told The Tribune.

Cancer cases are on the rise in Kashmir and data reveals that the Cancer Society of Kashmir has financially benefitted more than 27,000 patients since 2011.

As per the data released by the Indian Council of Medical Research, 16,480 patients with malignancies were registered in Kashmir until August 2017. The number of cancer patients registered in 2014 was 11,815.