Kerala - Kannur   

Centre plans to expand telemedicine facility

Staff Reporter

Pilot scheme launched across the country

KANNUR: Telemedicine has come a long way from a video-conferencing facility connecting healthcare institutions to a full-fledged network involving application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) that helps to bring healthcare within the reach of people in far off areas.

Advantage

There is no better example of the advantage of this technology in this part of the State than the telemedicine facility that is functioning successfully in the Malabar Cancer Care Society (MCCS) connected to the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC), Thiruvananthapuram, under the `Onconet Kerala' telemedicine project developed by the RCC and C-DAC, Thiruvananthapuram. As one-third of cancer patients who avail treatment at the RCC are from the Malabar region, mostly from Kannur district, the telemedicine facility at the MCCS here is a relief for them as it spares them the difficulty of travelling to the RCC for follow-up consultations and treatment.

"The telemedicine facility, which was earlier confined to urban centres, is now being made available in far flung areas," B.S. Bedi, senior director (Telemedicine) in the Department of Information Technology, Government of India, told reporters here in a tele-press meet at the RCC on Thursday organised by the MCCS. He said that the Centre now plans to further improve the telemedicine facility. The Ministry of Health had launched a pilot scheme in different parts of the country as part of working out modalities for setting up a national telemedicine grid, he said.

Mr. Bedi, who was part of the Indian delegation to the recently held World IT Summit in Tunis, said that there was good response to the tele-consultations between the RCC and MCCS shown in the summit. The international audience at the summit could have a closer look at the telemedicine facilities in the country, he said.

Former RCC director M. Krishnan Nair, who attended the tele-press meet, said that local treatment was required for patients who were in the early stage of cancer and the advanced stage patients, who required palliative care.

Telemedicine was a boon for patients belonging to both the categories, he said. It would also give lot of experience to local doctors who are treating cancer patients, Dr. Nair added.

Dr. Nair said that the number of cancer patients in the State was increasing because of a combination of factors such as higher life expectancy and lifestyle and dietary changes. He also said that there should be more local palliative centres as nearly 80 per cent of cancer patients required palliative care. Moreover, the significance of palliative care was not confined to cancer patients alone, Dr. Nair added.

To a question on increasing cost of cancer treatment, RCC director B. Rajan said that the RCC was planning to intensely promote its Cancer Raksha insurance scheme, the one-time payment premium of which ranged from Rs.500 to Rs.10,000. There was no existing medical insurance scheme that gives the maximum coverage of Rs.5 lakhs for treatment, he said.

A project linking Sree Chithra Institute, Thiruvananthapuram, and the District Government Hospital here through a telemedicine facility was already in the final stage, said K. Mohandas, Director of the institute.

To a question on the controversial drug trial conducted in the RCC in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins University in the United States, Dr. Rajan said that the controversy had initially affected the image of the RCC. "Now we are more cautious, but we need not be ashamed of having conducted the drug trial," Dr. Rajan said. Without drug trial, new medicines could not be developed for cancer patients, Dr. Nair added.

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