Kozhikode: Kalikavu block panchayat in Malappuram district in association with the Kannur-based NGO, Malabar Cancer Care Society (MCCS), has launched a cancer control programme in the block panchayat with a target of covering seven gram panchayats involving a 2.75 lakh population in 60,000 households.
The block panchayat under its people’s plan programme of 2016 -17 is collaborating with the MCCS project for the implementation of the Sanjeevani Comprehensive Cancer Control Project.The project comprises grassroot-level house to house person to person awareness aiming at cancer prevention and screening for early warning symptoms, village-level camps for detection and treatment and rehabilitation of survivors.
“The first three stages have been concluded. In the fourth stage, the trained volunteers in each panchayat ward will conduct house to house awareness. Screening for symptoms of oral, breast, cervical and colo-rectum cancers is another important task of the volunteers. The persons identified as having various symptoms are invited in the village level-filter camps in the 5th stage for medical examination by expert doctors headed by MCCS Medical Director Dr.V.C Ravindran,” D. Krishna-nadha Pai, the President of MCCS.
In the 6th stage, mega camps involving the services in Sanjeevani mobile tele – medicine unit will be held. The Sanjeevani mobile unit is a multi-hospital set-up on wheels, having modern diagnostic facilities such as ultra sound scan, digital mammogram, medical laboratory and video conference facility to avail the services of specialists from RCC Trivandrum.
Those diagnosed in the camp having cancers will get an immediate appointment in RCC and a railway pass also will be being given for patients and bystanders to travel from the nearest railway station. “More than 2,000 volunteers had undergone training for the programme. Early detection will help curing the disease without reaching a critical stage,” said Kalikavu block panchayat president P. Khalid.
