Bhubaneswar, Sept. 21: Essential drugs and equipment for cancer and cardiovascular diseases will be available at half the market price at Amrit outlet on the premises of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here within a month.
The Amrit (an acronym for affordable medicines and reliable implants for treatment) outlet will keep essential but usually expensive medicines and equipment at half the market price, doctors here said.
The store will be set up by HLL Life Care Limited. AIIMS administrators said the outlet would open by the next month.
AIIMS director Ashok Kumar Mahapatra said the private partner would procure and sell the medicine and equipment at the outlet. "The outlet will prove highly beneficial for patients as they can buy medicines and implants at 50 to 60 per cent cheaper rates than in the open market," said Mahapatra.
The Amrit outlet here will sell 202 types of cancer and 186 types of cardiovascular drugs, and 148 types of cardiac implants at affordable rates. Last year, the Union government launched the programme. Statistics peg the number of Indians diagnosed with cancer at 7 lakh every year.
"It is a good move. The state government already runs a scheme called Niramaya as part of which it provides medicines for free, but it does not provide such costly drugs. Thankfully, the outlet at AIIMS will serve that purpose now," said Sampad Mohany, a resident of Acharya Vihar.
According to data, cancer is the second biggest killer in the state after heart diseases. "The cancer mortality rate in the state is on the rise as it has been seen to breach the urban-rural divide by affecting rural women in the lower income group significantly over the past few years," said health director Kailash Dash.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, 16,885 persons died due to cancer in 2014. The estimates put the total incidence of cancer cases in the state at 38,375 in 2014 up from around 37,478 in 2013.
The report states that breast and oral cancers are among the most prevalent.
"The decision to have such an medical outlet comes at the right moment. People are already availing affordable treatment for deadly diseases at AIIMS and the introduction of the Amrit outlet will complete their needs. I hope the new service will lessen the expenditure of patients," said Radhika Bohidar, a patient's attendant here.
Besides the introduction of the outlet, the apex institute here has also decided to increase its bed strength by 30 with the opening up of a surgical super specialty ward. The new ward will have services such as plastic surgery, urology and paediatric surgery. Each of the services will have 10 beds allotted. With the current addition, the bed strength at AIIMS will stand at 560.
