A 300-bedded facility is coming up with a financial outlay of ₹300 crore in Tirupati to provide comprehensive cancer care.
The facility would be in tune with the modern-day requirements and would be a state-of-the-art facility from the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), said Joint Executive Officer S. Bhargavi, who flagged off a World Cancer Day rally here on Saturday, along with Collectors K. Venkataramana Reddy (Tirupati) and M. Hari Narayanan (Chittoor), Vice-Chancellors B. Vengamma (SVIMS University) and R. Sadasiva Murthy (SV Vedic University). The officer called it the social responsibility of the TTD, being the largest temple management in the world.
Ms. Vengamma recalled that their ‘Pink Bus’ had extensively travelled the countryside of Tirupati, Chittoor, Nellore, Kadapa and Annamayya districts and conducted 131 special camps so far, providing diagnostic services to rural women on oral, cervical and breast cancer.
The team jointly launched the Care Tracker app, which would be used for the first time at SVIMS-run Balaji Institute of Oncology (BIO). The app helps the medical personnel and patients to keep in touch with each other and get technical/medical counsel during the post-treatment or post-surgical period.
A palliative care wing was launched by Mr. Venkataramana Reddy later at SVIMS, which incidentally is the first among the three comprehensive cancer care units announced to be launched across the State by the government. Stressing the importance of providing succour in the form of palliative care to patients living with terminal cancer, he also offered to provide a bus to the unit to promote cancer awareness across the Rayalaseema region.
BIO Special Officer M. Jayachandra Reddy and District Medical and Health Officer U. Sreehari led the awareness rally, which was attended by the MBBS, nursing and physiotherapy students of SVIMS from their campus to Mahati auditorium.
