More than a year after rolling out the national programme for prevention and control of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and stroke, the Union Ministry of health and family welfare is still struggling to kick-start cancer screening in the district hospitals in the country.
Health secretary P K Pradhan says lack of trained manpower is the biggest hurdle in starting the screening for different types of cancers, which is required under the programme.
“Screening for cancer will be done at district level. We are facing problems of shortage of trained manpower at these hospitals,” he says.
If detected early, most of the cancer cases are curable, say doctors. This is the reason why screening is included in the national programme so that the disease is diagnosed early and patients can start treatment at the earliest. “Chances of curing cancer cases if detected early is 80 per cent,” says G K Rath, professor and head, department of radiation oncology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
