The state government of Telangana has launched first cancer care centre in Nizamabad Government General Hospital to cater to the healthcare needs of the cancer patients in the district. Earlier, thousands of patients have to travel all the way to Hyderabad for advanced treatment facilities, but now thanks to the state government, it has set up a ‘Cancer care centre’ for the first time in the district.

Dr C Laxma Reddy, state medical and health minister, said, “The state government of Telangana is giving highest priority to healthcare in the state. Our aim is to provide the best quality healthcare to the poor and downtrodden through government hospitals. As the conditions in all the government hospitals are horrible, people are forced to go to private hospitals pouring thousands of rupees for treatment. However, only rich are able to afford the corporate hospital treatment. Keeping this in view, we are planning to upgrade all the government hospitals at the district level and all the necessary medical equipments, required staff and doctors will be recruited at all levels and overall in the next 2-3 years we want to change the entire face of government hospitals and make quality healthcare available to the poor.”

Though Nizamabad is already having a government medical college, it is still in the development process and gradually improving all the departments. As part of this, the state government has decided to set up the Cancer care centre. Similarly, the health department of Telangana is also upgrading all the maternity hospitals as per World Health Organization (WHO) standards. “Not just improving the healthcare quality, but we are also planning to reduce the mother mortality and infant mortality rates to negligible levels in the state. As part of this we have taken up the task of upgrading more than 500 maternity hospitals as per WHO standards. We are strengthening all medical institutions from sub centre to state-level hospitals. At the same time we will also fill up more than 2000 vacant posts in the health department across the state,” informed the minister.

The state government is also planning to open up special wards for seasonal disease at district hospitals across the state. In addition to this earlier, the government had opened up intensive care units at all the district level government hospitals and now it has embarked on opening cancer screening centres to serve the cancer patients at the district level.