Overview
Sickle cell disease is a serious health problem in western Odisha with significant morbidity & mortality.It is a huge burden for the patient and his family & a serious challenge to the medical fraternity. Although very little was known about this disease when Dr. J.B Herrick described it in 1910, due to rapid advancement in molecular biology over the last 3 decades significant advances has been made in understanding the disease. Moreover development of newer drugs in the last decades has helped us to ameliorate some of the major clinical problems.
However, the major constraint for management of this problem is non availability of health facility in remote areas and lack of awareness amongst health care professionals about the various treatment modality of this disease. Fortunately keeping the above limitations in view National Rural Health Mission (NHM) & Department of Health & Family Welfare ,Government of Odisha have sponsored Odisha Sickle Cell Project under OHSP for development of a complete infrastructure for diagnosis,treatment,prevention & research in sickle cell disease. Under this project we have developed a state of the art sickle cell laboratory and a dedicated out patient clinic at V.S.S.Medical College,Burla.Sickle cell units have been established in 6 District Headquarter Hospitals namely Sambalpur, Bargarh, Bolangir, Sundergarh, Deogarh & Jharsuguda & extended recently to 6 new districts i.e Angul,Boudh,Kalahandi,Kandhamal,Nuapada & Sonepur .
A dedicated SICKLE CELL INSTITUTE is going to be established at V.S.S. Medical College Campus,Burla . We have distributed free medicine to more than a two thousand six hundred patients which led to significant decrease in disease severity & helping them to lead a near normal life & bringing cheers to their face. Besides we have conducted 20 sickle cell health camps in remote areas for screening, counselling, diagnosis & treatment of this disease. For creating awareness amongst the medical professionals, we have conducted several international, national & districts level CME .In this brochure we provide the details of the activity undertaken by us under this project till March 2013.
We expect that NHM and Govt. of Odisha will continue to support this novel activity for the benefit of the extremely poor & tribal population who carry a huge burden of this disease.
Our moto is “Let us make a sickler laugh”
Dream requires Effortless Sleep & Aim requires Sleepless Effort.