Bangalore: A leading corporate hospital and a noted medical foundation in the city Tuesday rolled out a joint campaign to check oral cancer in rural Karnataka where tobacco chewing is a menacing habit.
In the first phase, Narayana Health, a multi-specialty hospital, will take its rural cancer surveillance programme into three villages - Atebele, Anekal and Jigani - across Bangalore rural district to screen the affected people in a mobile clinic of the Mazumdar Shaw cancer centre, located in the health city.
Mazumdar Shaw Medical Foundation, founded by leading biotech firm Biocon Ltd chairperson Kiran Mazumdar, is partnering with Narayana to create awareness across rural areas of the state where diagnosis and treatment for head and neck cancer are absent.
"The campaign is to educate the people on early signs and symptoms of mouth and throat cancer, which are prevalent in rural areas owing to the growing tobacco chewing habit and bridge the wide urban-rural healthcare divide across the country," Narayana Health chairman Devi Shetty told reporters on the occasion.
Lamenting that 70 percent of the country's population living in rural areas have only one-third of hospital beds and no access to specialist doctors, Shetty said early diagnosis of head and neck cancer symptoms and treatment were difficult, as 80 percent of specialists live in cities catering to 20 percent of the population.
"As a result, 75 percent of cancers are diagnosed only in its fourth stage when treatment and survival become risky. Our novel programme is to reach out to the rural people and ensure they have access to timely diagnosis and quality healthcare," Shetty asserted.
