NEW DELHI: The Union Health Ministry has begun setting up 200 daycare cancer centres in over 750 district hospitals in the country, a top ministry official said on Friday.
“We have started carrying out surveys to assess the gaps in these over 750 district hospitals. We plan to upgrade them after we get the detailed report. Then we will start the process of setting up daycare cancer centres,” Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava told this newspaper.
In her budget speech, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced facilitating setting up of daycare cancer centres in all district hospitals over the next three years. “Our government will facilitate the establishment of Daycare Cancer Centres in all district hospitals over the next three years. Two hundred centres will be set up in 2025-26,” Sitharaman had said.
The health secretary said the total estimated expenditure in the next three years in establishing these daycare cancer centres will be Rs 3,200 crore.
The aim of setting up daycare cancer centres is to bring essential cancer services closer home, particularly for those in underserved rural areas.
The focus is also on providing chemotherapy services and conducting cancer prevention and awareness programme.
With the country witnessing rising morbidity due to cancer, which is posing a public health challenge, cancer screening for individuals aged above 30 years is being undertaken at the 1.6 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs in the country.
The secretary, who briefed the media on the budget allocation for the health ministry said Rs 3,000 crore was approved for 19 State Cancer Institutes and 20 Tertiary Cancer Care Centres in the last decade.
She said cancer treatment facilities have been approved in all 22 new All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
She said the budget has also made the provision of full exemption and concessional duty on select cancer and other life-saving drugs. Highlighting that health is a priority for the government, Srivastava said, from 2015 to 2026, the health budget has seen 160 per cent increase in the budget allocation. The ministry was allocated Rs 9,406 crore this fiscal, an increase of 28.8% from 2024-25.
Under the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) scheme, women have availed 47% of total cancer treatments, worth Rs 19,737 crore.
Cancer treatment amount accounts for 35% of the treatments done under PMJAY, considered to be the largest insurance scheme in the world. The scheme provides Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation.
She said timely initiation of cancer treatment increased by 90% for citizens covered under Ayushman Bharat.
According to Global Cancer Observatory data for 2022, the most common cancers among men in India are oral cavity, lung, and esophageal cancer, while breast, cervical, and ovarian cancer are the most prevalent among women.
Treatment closer home
The health secretary said the total estimated expenditure in the next three years in establishing these daycare cancer centres will be `3,200 crore. The aim of setting up daycare cancer centres is to bring essential cancer services closer home, particularly for those in underserved rural areas. The focus is also on providing chemotherapy services.