Bringing Radiation Therapy to Rural
Areas: Successes in India
Radiation therapy against
cancer is only useful if people have access to it. If you can’t afford it,
don’t have access to it, or don’t know enough to understand that it is safe,
then it won’t be of much use against your cancer. On July 1st, 2014, the
International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, and Physics published a
special issue dedicated to matters of bringing radiation therapy to underserved
areas.
Titles
of articles in this issue include:
• Bringing Cancer Care to
the Underserved Globally: A Challenging Problem for Which Radiation Oncology
Can Pioneer Novel Solutions
• Bringing Global Access
to Radiation Therapy: Time for a Change in Approach
•Bringing Radiation
Therapy to Underserved Nations: An Increasingly Global Responsibility in an
Ever-Shrinking World
In light of this special
issue, Cancer InCytes would like to highlight the efforts of Dr. M. R. Raju,
D.Sc., in India. Dr. Raju is the Managing Trustee of the Mahatma Gandhi
Memorial Medical Trust,
Pedaamiram, Bhimavaram.
His work brings health education and radiation therapy to rural areas of India.
Their dual approach of offering public health education and radiation therapy
has produced great results. The medical center recently celebrated Mahatma
Ghandi’s birthday with a reunion of patients and former students. This article
contains images of cancer survivors who were treated and remain cancer-free.
Dr. Raju is an excellent
example of a scientist who has become an advocate for positive social reform.
In 2013, he received one of India’s Padma Awards, the highest presidential
award given to civilians. You can read about his journey moving from research
on particle physics to teaching public health awareness about radiation so that
cancer victims in rural India would not be afraid of radiation therapy (1).
We commend Dr. Raju and
his colleagues for continuing to be a great example of how to bring radiation
treatment to underserved rural areas.
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