Tirupati: Pink Bus to be launched as part of Women's Cancer Initiative'

TIRUPATI: Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS) will launch a ‘pink bus’ as part of its initiative on Women's Cancer. The event will be held near administrative block of the institute in Tirupati on Saturday. SVIMS Director and Vice-Chancellor Dr T.S. Ravi Kumar will flag off the ‘pink bus’ and start mobile campaigning.

According to the SVIMS authorities, the bus is equipped with facilities like mobile mammography, gyn exam/ PAP smear, oral examination, breast ultrasound, educational video on cancer prevention, patient counselling etc, in a bundled screening approach for the three main types of cancer that affect women.

The stress will be on prevention and early diagnosis of these cancers, so as to reduce cancer burden in the community and ameliorate the hardships being faced by a number of women developing advanced cancers.

In the long run, the bus will also serve in screening and prevention of other non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as diabetes, high BP, smoking cessation, heart stroke and kidney diseases.

Dr Ravi Kumar said, the programme will be carried out in cooperation and collaboration with other government health programs through DM&HO, NGOs such as Rotary and industrial partners.

“Since Mangalam PHC serves as SVIMS rural health center, it will be the starting region for this mobile cancer screening initiative. It will be expanded to Tirupati Urban area, progressively expanding to Chittoor district and we hope to use this pink bus concept for health systems strengthening in the region of Rayalaseema", he added.

Meanwhile, Mr Lalit Shah hailing from Mumbai has donated Rs 1 crore for the bus and remaining fund of Rs 2.19 crore has been recruited from Sri Balaji Arogya Varaprasadini Scheme, as well as many members of SVIMS health system.