Silchar : Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Center (CCHRC) in the small town of Silchar in Assam is in the news today… and the reason is its director R. Ravi Kannan. Who has been given the 2023 Ramon Magsaysay Award. While cancer treatment in big cities costs up to Rs 15 lakh, treatment at CCHRC costs just Rs 1 lakh.
All this has been possible due to the efforts of Dr. Kannan. Therefore, surgical oncologist Dr. R Ravi Kannan has been given the honor of being called ‘Asia’s Nobel’. How this change was possible, Dr. Kannan shared the whole story with Bhaskar K D Kumar.
Dr. Kannan told – 21 years ago, I had come to Silchar to attend a seminar, then I did not know that such a big responsibility was going to fall on my shoulders. Even when I was at Adyar Cancer Institute in Chennai, the thinking was that every cancer patient should get treatment.
started in Silchar in 2007, neither the hospital had money nor the patients. We reduced expenses wherever possible. Like use of generic medicines, not making private wards etc. Because this expense will either be borne by the patient or the hospital.
Dr. Kannan said- We reduced the expenses without compromising the quality of treatment. Didn’t invest our own money on infrastructure because it would require taking a loan and the medical expenses would increase. The cost of the radiation machine itself is Rs 20 crore. All these arrangements are made with the help of CSR.
Here the salary of doctors and staff is also not high. During treatment, care is taken to ensure that necessary medicines are given regularly as per the standard of care. Precious medicines are used only where it is very necessary.
Initially he used to perform surgeries alone, but now 450 people including a team of more than 20 doctors are engaged in service day and night. CCHRC has now become a better cancer hospital and research centre. Earlier, 1200 patients used to come in a year. Now more than 5 thousand come.
About 30 thousand patients come for re-checkup. Patients also come here from Kolkata, Chennai and Bangladesh. Here, even the biggest surgery, including microvascular surgery, costs Rs 20 thousand. We have started a program for the poor with free treatment, food, accommodation and employment for caretakers and a homecare programme.
Many patients were unable to continue treatment due to the difficulty and cost of traveling long distances. In such a situation, their relatives are given work in the hospital itself, so that they can take care of the patient with that amount. I think cancer patients should get treatment an hour away from home. That’s why we are working on a plan to open two hospitals in Tripura’s Dharmanagar and Manipur.
