World | India
Medical physicists urged to go rural
Anil Kakodkar, the chief of the Atomic Energy Commission, today urged medical physicists to take the benefits of advanced radiation treatment to the remote corners of India where poor cancer patients have little or no access to health care.
- By Pamela Raghunath, Correspondent
- Published: 00:02 November 27, 2008
Mumbai: Anil Kakodkar, the chief of the Atomic Energy Commission, today urged medical physicists to take the benefits of advanced radiation treatment to the remote corners of India where poor cancer patients have little or no access to health care.
Medical facilities for the treatment of cancer through radiation therapy is generally available in urban areas where higher income groups live, he said.
Therefore, medical professionals had to face up to two challenges: finding specialists willing to work in remote areas to serve the rural poor, and creating low cost but up-to-date technology without sacrificing on quality and standards, he told delegates at the inauguration of the four-day international conference on Advanced Technology of Radiation Medicine and Medical Physics Practice.
The 29th Annual Conference of the Association of Medical Physicists of India is being attended by around 500 professionals, including 50 international experts.
In bringing technology to the general public, "we at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre have made a small beginning in the development of Bhabhatron-II," a telecobalt machine used in cancer centres, Kokdkar said.
This first commercially produced indigenous machine has facilitated treatment of cancer patients at an affordable price, he said.
Despite an adequate number of medical physicists being trained every year, he said a good number of them were leaving for places where the remuneration was high.
"This issue must be addressed," he added.
India has an incidence of 900,000 cancer cases and about 400,000 patients die of cancer every year.
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