Cancer treatment being expensive is practically unaffordable to India’s underprivileged poor. Yet many of them end up getting treated in private hospitals and to bear the high costs, families of patients sell land holdings and exhaust their savings. When symptoms of cancer first appear, patients consult their family doctors who are general practitioners. The family doctor refers them to the private hospital known to him/her in the particular town/city. Once treatment begins at the private hospital, the patient has no option but to continue with them and costs begin piling up.
It doesn’t have to be such a bleak scenario for the underprivileged cancer patient. Serving them with free or subsidized treatment are Regional Cancer Centres (RCCs) of Government of India, Tata Memorial Centre’s hospitals and certain private hospitals. These are listed here.
27 Regional Cancer Centres (RCCs) have been set up in various States by Govt of India. These RCCs with highly qualified Oncologists and world-class facilities, provide excellent treatment options for various kinds of cancers. Every RCC is intended to treat patients from that particular State in which it is located. Any State which does not have an RCC has been assigned an RCC located in an adjoining State. Some of the popular RCCs are Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology (Bangalore), Regional Cancer Institute – WIA (Chennai), RCC Trivandrum, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute (Kolkata) etc.
Tata Memorial Centre’s (TMC’s) acclaimed hospitals are in Mumbai, Guwahati, Sangrur, Varanasi and Visakhapatnam. Other private hospitals offering affordable treatment are HCG Foundation, Muthoot Hospitals, Shree Shankara Cancer Hospital. Delhi State Cancer Hospital etc, all of whom can be found here.