Sparsh Hospice is all set to establish a 50 bedded palliative care center with an outlay of Rs.7 crore in Hyderabad. The new center will come up over an area of 1 acre land allocated by Government of Telangana on lease for 33 years. K.T. Rama Rao, Minister of MA&UD, IT and Industries took part in the stone laying ceremony and assured all support to improve healthcare sector in the state. “Government is giving highest priority to healthcare in the state and will look into easing out stringent rules, if any existing in the state,” said the Minister.

Speaking earlier Vara Prasad Reddy, founder and chairman of Shantha Biotechnics and Governing Board Member of Sparsh Hospice sought government intervention to ease out the stringent rules laid down in usage of Narcotic Drugs in Cancer Pain Management and using drugs like Fentanyl Patches. Fentanyl Patch when used on the body reduces pain for 72 hours.

Because of stringent rules, it has been taking months of time for the medicine to reach to the patients. Though companies are able to manufacture pain management drugs with the help of the modern technology, they are unable to reach the patients in time. “We fought with Central Government for eight years to ease these rules and got a GO sanctioned, advising state governments to follow the same procedure,” said Varaprasad Reddy

Though some states like UP, Kerala, Maharashtra simplified the rules,Telugu states have not done much. For which KT Rama Rao asked them to circulate the orders of the states which have simplified the rules. And he assured that Telangana state too would pass GO in helping manufactures reach patients in time and mitigate their pain. KT Rama Rao assured his total support in this regard.

The Sparsh Hospic has gathered the funds mostly from donations and the new facility is expected to come up in the next one year. It is estimated that 10 lakh patients are diagnosed with cancer each year in India and an estimated 70 per cent patients are in advance stages of the disease. Only a tiny minority of 0.5 per cent has access to palliative care and pain relief.

All of Sparsh’s facilities including stay, medicine, medical care and food are entirely free to patients. The running cost is about Rs.5 lakh every month informed Dr. Pranathi Reddy one of the Sparsh Hospice Trustee.