NT Reporter
Panaji
Goa’s decision to make cancer a notified disease will give the state a more comprehensive picture of its cancer burden, but the notification itself does not announce any new financial benefit or reduction in treatment costs for
patients.
Under the public health department’s notification dated August 20, all newly diagnosed cancer cases, including in-situ and invasive malignancies, will have to be notified.
For patients, however, the immediate question is whether being diagnosed with a notified disease means cheaper treatment. The notification does not specify any new subsidy, free treatment entitlement, insurance cover or reduction in treatment costs. Any change in financial assistance would, therefore, require a separate government decision.
The Goa government’s mediclaim scheme covers super-specialty treatment, hospitalisation and specialised procedures outside government set-ups, with financial assistance of upto Rs 8 lakh to the patient. The financial assistance is procedure-specific.
Day care chemotherapy centres have recently been opened at both the district hospitals. Goa Medical College (GMC) and Hospital already has an oncology department. The new state-of-the-art cancer hospital at Bambolim, which is under construction, is likely to be inaugurated early 2027.
The new cancer hospital is built as Tertiary Cancer Care Centre (TCCC) in partnership with Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Centre.
With the government bringing cancer under notified disease category, all newly diagnosed cancer cases, whether early-stage or invasive, must now be reported and the requirement covers government and private hospitals, medical colleges, nursing homes, clinics, oncology and day-care centres, pathology, haematology and cytology laboratories, diagnostic and imaging centres, hospices, palliative-care institutions and cancer-screening programmes.
Cases are to be reported preferably within seven days and, in any event, within one month of diagnosis. The Directorate of Health Services is required to establish or designate a State Cancer Registry or Cancer Surveillance System to compile, validate, analyse and monitor the information.
Oncologist Dr Shekhar Salkar, who is the president of National Organisation for Tobacco Eradication (India), said the move could have significance beyond data collection.
“This is a major milestone for cancer control in Goa,” Dr Salkar said, adding that systematic cancer data could help the state move towards data-driven prevention, early detection and population-level cancer control.
He said a robust surveillance system could help identify where cancers are occurring, which cancers are increasing, which populations are the most affected and where gaps exist in screening, diagnosis and treatment.
Dr Jean Louis A De Menezes said the notification could help establish a clearer picture of the cancer burden in Goa, provided the reporting system is implemented effectively.
“Making cancer a notified disease can help create a more comprehensive picture of the cancer burden in Goa. The usefulness of the system will ultimately depend on how consistently cases are reported and how the data is used to improve screening, early diagnosis and treatment planning,” he said.
The notification also provides for confidentiality of individual patient information, with the data intended primarily for public-health surveillance, programme planning, research and monitoring. The next test will, therefore, be implementation, particularly whether the State Cancer Registry and reporting mechanism are established effectively, and whether the information collected translates into better screening, earlier diagnosis, improved treatment capacity and better outcomes for patients.
