5 July 2011
Special Correspondent
The Hindu
The SIPCOT Area Community Environmental Monitoring (an outfit comprising local residents) and the Consumer Federation of Tamil Nadu have appealed to Chief Minister Jayalalithaa to order a comprehensive cancer screening camp in the villages surrounding the SIPCOT Industrial Estate here. The Cuddalore district administration along with the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board had organised a cancer screening camp on last June 29 at Kudigadu near the industrial estate in which three women doctors and two men doctors screened a total of 255 patients.
According to M.Nizamudeen, executive secretary of the Federation, even while the camp was going on, Joint Director of Health Services B. Kamalakannan had come over there and instructed the doctors on duty to file a nil report on the people’s health status.
In this regard the organisations screened a short footage, which was shot in a hand-held camera and recorded on a compact disc, the Joint Director’s action to the presspersons here on Monday.
The organisations stated that the camp was organised on a working day without proper intimation. It looked as if an attempt was made to give a clean chit to the industrial units that they were not discharging any carcinogenic pollutants.
Dr Kamalakannan told this correspondent that all doctors had taken the Hippocratic oath not to swerve from ethical medical practices. What he had told the doctors was that if they did not come across any cancer symptoms they could file the nil report, but it was misinterpreted in certain quarters and used as a tool for a motivated campaign.