Bhubaneswar: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhubaneswar has now started a new concept of working with ‘cancer navigators’ to assist hundreds of cancer patients thronging the premier central hospital.
The hospital managed by the Union health ministry has now planned to rope in cancer navigators with the assistance of the non-government organisations (NGOs) which can provide the cancer patients with the right information on treatment centres, online and offline registration and other out of hospital assistance.
According to the Dr S Mohanty, Medical Superintendent of AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, the services have already been started on a trial basis and yielding a good result in coordinating with the hospital and patients and bridging the doctor-patient gap in cancer treatments especially for the people from the rural areas.
“This has proved helpful to the rural patients in getting guidance in cancer treatment at the hospital. For this project we made a tie up with an NGO named Umeedein and worked together to help the patients in providing a quality treatment with satisfaction,” Dr Mohanty said.
“We tried with a young cancer navigator and he has done some good job. The prime responsibility of the navigators is to help the patients coming from rural areas and others to guide and assist them in their registrations, guiding them on where to visit for treatments. We will also be recognizing them from our side,” said Dr Madhabnanda Kar, Surgical Oncologist from AIIMS, Bhubaneswar.
According to Kar, the hospital is now overburdened with the inflow of cancer patients from all over the state. He said that he is seeing around 200 patients at the surgical OPD alone. He claimed that the use of navigators can help the patients in better and well coordinated guidance when they come to seek treatment from AIIMS with hopes at their heart.
“Usage of navigators has been successful in premier cancer hospitals in India like Tata Memorial hospital. They become single source of all guidance to them. They help in filing up forms, telling the patients about available government schemes for them and ways to avail them, informing them with information on like from where to get blood, medicines and other information ion supportive facilities,” said Nitai Panigrahi, Volunteer, Umeedein, which is working with AIIMS to provide a navigator.
