KIMS Organises Walkathon To Create Cancer Awareness In Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar: The KIMS Cancer Centre in Bhubaneswar organised a walkathon on the occasion of World Cancer Day on Saturday to create awareness on combating the disease.

The walkathon saw overwhelming participation of the students, doctors, nurses, faculties and staff of the KIMS. The students from KISS raised slogans to promote cancer awareness such as ‘don’t hide cancer’ and ‘go for treatment and defeat the disease’.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Bidhu Kalyan Mohanti, director of the KIMS Cancer Centre said, “People are aware of diseases related to orthopaedic, teeth and gum. But they feel that cancer is like a mystery to them while it is not. World Cancer Day is an occasion when we make people aware of cancer and highlight that it is also curable if it is diagnosed on time.”

About 2 crore people around the world are diagnosed with cancer every year, while 4-5 crore people are living after cancer diagnosis as survivors. In India alone, 14 lakh people are diagnosed with the disease annually.

“Low and middle-income countries account for 70% of the roughly 10 million deaths reported across the world every year due to lack of access to cancer treatment,” said surgical oncologist at KIMS Cancer Centre Dr Saroj Ranjan Sahoo.

“We need to remove the inequality. We need to ensure that everyone gets cancer treatment. We all need to know about cancer. Many people are hesitant to accept that they have cancer. Our objective is to ensure that people become aware and get early treatment,” he added.

“The common types of cancer reported in India are related to lungs, stomach and mouth. Breast cancer and cervical cancer are common among women. In Odisha also, we have encountered a similar trend. But they are easily treatable if diagnosed early,” said Dr Sabyasachi Parida, surgical oncologist at the Centre.

Cancer specialists who participated in the walkathon included Dr Biswajit Bhuyan, Dr Jogamaya Pattnaik, Dr Adarsh Yadwad, and Dr Ushashree  Das, Dr Palash Das, Dr J Panda, Dr Mandira Saha Mallik, Dr Bijayalaxmi Sahoo among others.

KIMS Cancer Centre is a constituent of KIIT Deemed-to-be-University and KISS is the university with various schools of social sciences. The state-of-art Centre, which was commissioned six months ago, is a comprehensive cancer care hospital spread over 7 floors on the KIMS premises.