Cochin Cancer Research Center (CCRC) located in Ernakulam, Kochi, Kerala comes up with a bond with private hospitals in around Kochi to provide radiation therapy, especially for the underprivileged under the Karunya Health Scheme (KHS).
Karunya Healthcare Scheme
Karunya Health Scheme is an initiative by the Kerala government to provide standard healthcare accessibility to underprivileged people. It helps people with critical health diseases such as cancer to pay for their treatment expenditures. The scheme allocates 5 lakhs rupees per family, per year, to cover their secondary and tertiary medical needs. The future aim of this body is to spread the service across India, with the aid of the central and the respective state governments.
CCRC’s change in location for Radiation therapy
CCRC usually sends patients for radiation therapy to general public hospitals. They receive funds from the Karunya healthcare scheme, and this helps them with an overall improvement in these hospitals. Now, CCRC has signed a pact with private hospitals for allocating room for its radiation therapy patients.
Some feel that this change of location move to be initiated by the private hospitals as they can benefit from the additional funds from the KHS and attract more patients to their facility. This concern was put forth to the Chief Minister of Kerala through Dr. NK Sanil Kumar of the Justice Krishna Iyer Movement.
Acumen Behind the bond explained
CCRC says the reason for the shift, is that it takes cancer survivors to wait a long time such as 2-3 months to get radiation in general public hospitals, which may affect the course of the treatment. Thus, private hospitals are more in number and with their facilities, they can accommodate patients at the allotted specific time.
Private Hospital Aster Medcity is one of the hospitals that have agreed to the bond with CCRC. It explains that the CCRC has approached for their services with the approval from Health Minister Veena George and it has nothing to do with the funds involved in it. They have said we are welcome to provide quality treatment and radiation therapy to the underprivileged patients from CCRC and use the Karunya Health Scheme fund only for their needs.
Thus both parties have cleared the air with their statements explaining the acumen behind the bond.
