Come March the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC’s) health department will start screening women for oral, cervical and breast cancer. The civic body is expected to start the initiative on March 3 and will continue till the end of the month. The initiative is aimed at early diagnosis of the disease among women. The project was approved by the PMC standing committee last month and will be implemented in March.
The special tumour screening programme will be open for all women living within PMC jurisdiction. Camps will be held in the slums and other parts of civic area to ensure outreach and screening camps will be made available even in the PMC-run hospitals.
Dr Sanjeev Wavare, assistant health chief, said, “Women will be screened for oral cancer, cervical cancer and breast cancer. The PMC health department has tied up with an NGO named AASTA. The PMC has set a target to screen at least ten thousand women as part of the initiative. There is no specific age group for the screening test. We are going to focus on the women coming from weak economic backgrounds — the population which always get neglected.”
