‘Udhampur may be part of region’s health circuit’

Jammu, September 24

Launching the UT’s first Tata Memorial Centre-affiliated cancer care unit in the new block of Government Medical College (GMC) Kathua on Sunday, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said that the facility would cater to three territories, including J&K, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. “India has taken a lead in the production of vaccines for the prevention of malignancies like Cervavac. Affordable and accessible healthcare is the road map for a healthy India,” he said.

The minister said that with increasing lifespan, changing lifestyles, environmental factors, the prevalence of cancer was assuming epidemic proportions and cancers of all nature and all organs were happening everywhere. A Tata satellite cancer care facility in Kathua will therefore prove to be a great boon for the region, he added.

He said the Udhampur parliamentary constituency could be the future health circuit of the region with state-of-the-art healthcare facilities, like three centrally funded medical colleges, north India’s first biotech park in Kathua, centrally funded Ayurvedic College Kishtwar, National Institute of High Altitude Medicine, Bhaderwah, among others.

The minister was addressing a large gathering after inaugurating the cancer unit.