Chandigarh, March 24 (IANS). The Punjab government is actively considering a proposal to empanel hospitals from other states for the treatment of pediatric cancer patients in the state under the official health insurance scheme, an official said on Tuesday.
Dr Gagandeep Singh Grover, Assistant Director, Department of Non-Communicable Diseases, Department of Health and Family Welfare (DHFW), Punjab, said that recently we received a request for empanelment from a hospital in Gurugram, Haryana, where five patients from Punjab were transferred from AIIMS for treatment.
He was speaking during a state-level counseling workshop organized here on improving access to treatment for children suffering from cancer, according to a statement.
Participating in the stakeholders’ dialogue on strengthening child cancer care, Dr. Sushil Mahi, Director, Department of Non-Communicable Diseases, Haryana, expressed the state government’s readiness to explore all options to help children easily get cancer treatment in centers of excellence located near their homes.
Poonam Bagai, member of ICMR’s Central Human Research Policy Committee, founder of CanKids and representative of the WHO South-East Asia region to Childhood Cancer International, said the six states and union territories of north-west India need to work together, as patients from these states continue to travel to neighboring states for treatment.
There are examples from Uttar Pradesh where patients have availed their state’s financial assistance for treatment in a hospital in Madhya Pradesh, but such interoperability of government insurance schemes in the six northern states/UTs is limited.
He said state governments need to work together as stakeholders and find solutions for the 4,400 children suffering from cancer in the region from Ladakh to Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, so that the government financial assistance scheme of their home state continues with the patient if he chooses to get treatment at a more accessible center in the neighboring state.
Bagai said that for example, beneficiaries of the Punjab Chief Minister’s Relief Fund should get free treatment in Haryana, or children from Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh should be able to avail the benefits of their government’s financial assistance schemes during treatment at PGI, Chandigarh.
The conference participants included Shruti Kakkar, Professor, Department of Pediatrics, CMC, Ludhiana, Consultant, Hematology and Stem Cell Transplant Unit, and Amita Trehan, Professor, Pediatric Hematology Oncology Unit, Advanced Pediatric Centre, PGIMER, Chandigarh, the statement said.
The conference sessions focused on integrated models for comprehensive pediatric cancer care in North-West India, funding gaps for health services and universal health coverage, the role of tertiary centers in improving survival outcomes and leveraging government-NGO partnerships for last mile impact, from policy to people.
Bagai informed that a task force will soon be constituted to coordinate with the state governments and other stakeholders to ensure that children suffering from cancer, regardless of geographical boundaries, continue to receive the best treatment from their respective state government funds, regardless of geographical boundaries, in the 6 states/UTs of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
–IANS
SD/DKP
