This week in Sickle cell news june 20th to the 26th

By Sean Marshall
A few months ago in March the Nagpur government in India announced that all individuals with sickle cell anemia disease would be granted free travel. The idea behind this was that those who suffer from sickle cell disease could now travel from the remote corners of Napur in order to find the best medical help to treat their disease. Unfortunately it was announced by The Rimes India that the program is suffering and hasn't been able to fully start.

It was explained in an article published July 24th that “in May, the state transport authority asked the health department of the state government to deposit Rs 1 crore towards this end. This money has yet to reach the transport department.”

For those who are unaware a crore is is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to ten million. So the health department was originally going to give 10 million dollars to the transportation department to allow the free transportation of sickle cell sufferers by bus.

It was also explained that the reason why this took so long to surface was because of the tireless work of Sampat Ramteke a president of an NGO sickle cell society of India. He was the person who pushed for the alleged bill to be passed and when no action was taken and he was the one who pushed for this information to be released when the transportation still wasn’t free.

It was stated that transportation department will take immediate action once the initial down payment is received.

The original article can be found at the link below: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/Free-travel-for-sickle-cell-patients-hits-funds-hurdle/articleshow/48194698.cms
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