Dr. Rajesh Jindel
MD (Gen. Med), DM (Med.Oncology), & Medical Director
The mere mention of 'cancer' is enough to send chills down our spine, as the disease remains largely untreatable even today. Yet there are people like Dr. Rajesh Jindal who have made it their life’s mission to lead the battle against it. During his early days in medical college, his interest in nuclear physics sparked a reading spree about the use of radiation in medicine. This further ensured his inclination towards the subject and encouraged him to complete his MD in Radiotherapy, where all kinds of high energy beams are used to treat cancers. Further exposure to radiation treatment came during his stint at the All India Institute Of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and under the able guidance of his teachers he soon found himself immersed in. the nuances of this distinctive medical speciality.
Transitioning from a radiation oncologist to becoming a medical oncologist, Dr. Rajesh has been able to craft himself as one of the most coveted oncologists of the present era. Associated with various Hospitals and Medical Institutions in India and overseas Dr. Rajesh is acknowledged and admired for initiating work on neo adjuvant chemotherapy in advanced head and neck cancers at the AIIMS, New Delhi. He was also associated with Tata Memorial Hospital Mumbai and has worked extensively with Dr. S H Advani at TMH Mumbai pioneering chemotherapy in locally advanced breast cancer. Dr. Rajesh came up with his brainchild Medella Cancer Cure Centre three years back, which is seamlessly catering to the segment of cancer care under his commendable guidance and skills.
Transition from Radiation to Medical Oncology was gradual and it was a one way street.
Dr. Rajesh has been able to work himself to become one of the most coveted oncologist at present. He has been associated with various hospitals and medical institutions, in India and abroad. His pioneering work on the neoadjuvant chemotherapy of head and neck cancers at AIIMS, New Delhi has been published in several national and international journals. He was also associated with Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai where he worked extensively with other leading experts on pioneering work on locally advanced breast cancer. Despite the covid pandemic, on 23rd January 2021, Dr. Rajesh brought to fruition his brainchild Medella Cancer Cure Centre, in an underserved region of Kolkata. Medella is seamlessly catering to the entire spectrum of the society with state of the art cancer treatment facilities.
Dr. Rajesh engages in an insightful interaction with CEO Insights
Define Medella Cancer Cure Centre as an organization and how is it different from other cancer cure hospitals present in the country?
To me, Medella Cancer Cure Centre has been the culmination of a long-time dream of a long-time effort that I have always wanted to do to serve my patients and help them conquer cancer on a 360-degree basis. Medella Cancer Cure Centre has been conceived with the notion to offer the best possible cancer treatment to a patient, meanwhile remaining aligned with his socio-economic background, his understanding of the situation, and the necessary support structures in his possession to be treated for cancer. In a patient’s life, there are a lot of factors that can influence the course of treatment, and by remaining adherent to those factors I might be able to design a convenient treatment protocol for the patient. This ideology is the foundation of Medella Cancer Cure Centre.
Cancer treatment centres all over the country are overburdened with patients. To me, Medella is the concrete beginning of a long cherished dream of setting up a dedicated cancer treatment centre and offer holistic cancer care to the ever increasing number of cancer patients. Medella Cancer Cure Centre has been conceived with the sensitivity to offer the best possible cancer treatment to a patient, and still remaining aligned with the patient’s socio-economic background, his understanding of the situation, and the support that he may be able to muster. Treating the cancer is of paramount importance but Medella also strives
to treat the ‘person’ and his family with expertise, counselling and compassion. The treatment protocol is tailor made for every patient and takes into account all the information: physical, social, financial and others, that the patient provides. This is the philosophy of work at Medella.
As a doctor also, I strive to know my patients better to help them effectively. During the initial consultation, I spend about an hour or more with the patient, during which, I will hear him out to know all his fears, his expectations of treatment, his honest family situation, and so on. Instead of rushing to diagnose, we first try to understand the patient and explain to him everything about biopsy, radiation, chemotherapy, and so on.
As a concerned physician I strive to know my patients better to help them effectively. The first consultation lasts for about an hour or as long as the patient and his family require. During this time, in a relaxed setting (no time keeping)I hear him out: his fears, expectations from the treatment, finances, family and other support and anything else the patient thinks has a bearing on the treatment. Before rushing into treatment and investigation, I explain everything about the various scans, blood tests, the treatment protocol, the time frame and the finances involved.
Share about the facilities you offer at Medella Cancer Cure Centre. What are the recent tools and technologies you are using to treat the patients more effectively?
Medella Cancer Cure Centre is located in the northern part of the city. It is at least 15 kilometers away from the nearest Cancer Center. My center has a huge proposition to serve and the location itself is a big advantage to the people, as they don't have to spend money on transportation and bear all the hassle or botheration of transporting a sick patient, now and then every day for treatment. With more than 50 indoor beds, we've got an ICU, OT, CT scanner, Halcyon linear accelerator, IGRT machine, and so on. Apart from being patient-friendly, these machines are state of the art and help us pragmatically in patient immobilization systems as well as across our protocols such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and so on.
Medella Cancer Cure Centre is located in the northern part of Kolkata, which is very under served in terms of health services. Medella is a full service cancer hospital with fifty beds ICU and operation theatres. All state of the art investigations, including the latest molecular test for cancer diagnostics are available. A CT scan provides all the diagnostic radiology. The wards are well equipped for chemo therapy and immunotherapy administration.
For radiation, Medella has the latest linear accelerator HALCYON from Varian of USA. It is true IGRT(image guided radio therapy) machine and is very patient friendly. Medella is located very well on the main arterial road and it is also well connected by suburban rail, metro rail and ferry.
Reflect on some of the major challenges you have experienced in your journey so far. How did you overcome them and what did you learn from them?
The major challenge that I have faced, especially during my tenure in Saudi Arabia, was to remain abreast with the latest trends in cancer care segments. Since the technology was not quite advanced at that time, it was tough for us to remain aligned with the happenings around the world. The hospital was in a small city and though, we used to get journal sat that time it was never adequate. I am glad that with the penetration of the internet into our lives, that limitation has been over come and we can easily access knowledge by participating in webinars, seminars and conferences.
Now, the present-day limitation is about finding adequate time to remain abreast with what's happening around. Since I have to handle the administrative work in the hospital, it becomes difficult to keep up with the ongoing innovations, especially with the rapid strides in immune therapy, but I have been managing it till now with the help of a good team.
One of the major challenges in cancer is to make people aware of cancer and the benefits of screening. Most people are not willing to accept that they may be at risk of a malignancy for all kinds of reasons : real or imagined. In a survey in South India it was discovered that 55% of women had not heard about breast cancer, 80% - 90% were not aware of the symptoms and less than 65% did any kind of breast self examination. Another challenge zone is cancer vaccination. A large number of people fail to comprehend the advantage of HPV vaccine against cervix cancer for their daughters.At the start of treatment, especially chemotherapy, people are afraid of the adverse effects and sometimes
To me, Medella Cancer Cure Centre is the concrete beginning of a long cherished dream, and longtime effort to serve my patients and help them conquer cancer on a 360degree basis
As a doctor also, I strive to know my patients better to help them effectively. During the initial consultation, I spend about an hour or more with the patient, during which, I will hear him out to know all his fears, his expectations of treatment, his honest family situation, and so on. Instead of rushing to diagnose, we first try to understand the patient and explain to him everything about biopsy, radiation, chemotherapy, and so on.
As a concerned physician I strive to know my patients better to help them effectively. The first consultation lasts for about an hour or as long as the patient and his family require. During this time, in a relaxed setting (no time keeping)I hear him out: his fears, expectations from the treatment, finances, family and other support and anything else the patient thinks has a bearing on the treatment. Before rushing into treatment and investigation, I explain everything about the various scans, blood tests, the treatment protocol, the time frame and the finances involved.
Share about the facilities you offer at Medella Cancer Cure Centre. What are the recent tools and technologies you are using to treat the patients more effectively?
Medella Cancer Cure Centre is located in the northern part of the city. It is at least 15 kilometers away from the nearest Cancer Center. My center has a huge proposition to serve and the location itself is a big advantage to the people, as they don't have to spend money on transportation and bear all the hassle or botheration of transporting a sick patient, now and then every day for treatment. With more than 50 indoor beds, we've got an ICU, OT, CT scanner, Halcyon linear accelerator, IGRT machine, and so on. Apart from being patient-friendly, these machines are state of the art and help us pragmatically in patient immobilization systems as well as across our protocols such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and so on.
Medella Cancer Cure Centre is located in the northern part of Kolkata, which is very under served in terms of health services. Medella is a full service cancer hospital with fifty beds ICU and operation theatres. All state of the art investigations, including the latest molecular test for cancer diagnostics are available. A CT scan provides all the diagnostic radiology. The wards are well equipped for chemo therapy and immunotherapy administration.
For radiation, Medella has the latest linear accelerator HALCYON from Varian of USA. It is true IGRT(image guided radio therapy) machine and is very patient friendly. Medella is located very well on the main arterial road and it is also well connected by suburban rail, metro rail and ferry.
Reflect on some of the major challenges you have experienced in your journey so far. How did you overcome them and what did you learn from them?
The major challenge that I have faced, especially during my tenure in Saudi Arabia, was to remain abreast with the latest trends in cancer care segments. Since the technology was not quite advanced at that time, it was tough for us to remain aligned with the happenings around the world. The hospital was in a small city and though, we used to get journal sat that time it was never adequate. I am glad that with the penetration of the internet into our lives, that limitation has been over come and we can easily access knowledge by participating in webinars, seminars and conferences.
Now, the present-day limitation is about finding adequate time to remain abreast with what's happening around. Since I have to handle the administrative work in the hospital, it becomes difficult to keep up with the ongoing innovations, especially with the rapid strides in immune therapy, but I have been managing it till now with the help of a good team.
One of the major challenges in cancer is to make people aware of cancer and the benefits of screening. Most people are not willing to accept that they may be at risk of a malignancy for all kinds of reasons : real or imagined. In a survey in South India it was discovered that 55% of women had not heard about breast cancer, 80% - 90% were not aware of the symptoms and less than 65% did any kind of breast self examination. Another challenge zone is cancer vaccination. A large number of people fail to comprehend the advantage of HPV vaccine against cervix cancer for their daughters.At the start of treatment, especially chemotherapy, people are afraid of the adverse effects and sometimes
their dithering delays the treatment. Finally the cost of treatment from diagnosis to end of treatment is a major challenge for a majority of our people which we all need to address on a war footing.
What is the current position of India in terms of providing eminent cancer cure facilities at a global level? What more can we expect from this segment in the future?
Cancer care requires a whole lot of things to be done in this country. To give you an example, WHO recommends for middle and low-income countries have a linear accelerator for a million population, and being a country with a population of 135 crores, we need more than 13,500 linear accelerators, approximately. West Bengal has a population of some where 9-10 crores, and accordingly, we will need about 9200 linear accelerators to cater to our population here in West Bengal. But we only have 20 to 25 linear accelerators now. Similarly, there is an extremely short supply of cancer treatment beds or surgical beds, which are generally used for chemotherapy. As a result of this, people give up, because the closest landmark where they can find all these facilities is more than 300-400 kilometers away, and the patient can't afford to live in a new place in his/he condition. Since prices are all shooting up and everything is becoming quite expensive, it becomes difficult for people to afford cancer treatment, or maybe any other treatment also, for that matter. I think we need to find ways to finance cancer treatment, maybe through insurance policies, government support, crowd funding, philanthropic institutions, and charity-minded people. We need government and well-wishers of our present society to take cancer treatment seriously, and speed up our efforts with ten times more intensity in this direction. According to me, once the cancer treatment gets broader, the cost for it also would be contained.
India does not lack the expertise to treat cancer: we lack infrastructure. Our oncologist are as good as anywhere else and given the increasing number of cancer cases we need more and more of them. The current ratio is 1:1600 one oncologist for 1600 patients. The ideal ratio is 1:400. For middle and low income countries the WHO recommends one linear accelerator for every ten lakh people (in the US and Western Europe it is one for every two and a half lakh people). For our population of 135 crores (and rising)we need more than 1300 radiation machines but we have less than 500 working machines. About fifteen percent of these machines have to be replaced every year, having lived their useful lives. Out of the 640 districts in India only 40 have a radiation unit available in the local hospital. People from other districts have to travel long distances for radiation and may be for other cancer treatments as well. Similarly, hospital beds required for treating cancer patients are only about one fifth of what they should be. It is estimated that we need more than thirty thousand beds all over the country to cater to cancer patients the available number is only about six thousand.
Treatment costs are a very important part of the cancer landscape. Although cancer treatment costs five to six times less in India than the west, it is still not affordable for a significant majority of our people. A miniscule percentage of people have any kind of health insurance cover. Only twenty percent of households have an annual income of more than two lakh rupees which is just about enough to cover the base line treatment costs.
We need to find ways to finance cancer treatment maybe through insurance policies, government support crowd funding, philan thropic institutions, and charity-minded people. We need government and well wishers in the society to take cancer treatment seriously. We need to notch up our efforts higher by several orders of magnitude to create the infrastructure to contain and treat this disease.
Dr. Jindel with so much on your mind tell us how do you unwind? What else do you engage in besides oncology?
Good question. I read. I am particularly fond of classic hindi poetry Kabir, Tulsi, Rahim, Guptji and Jai Shanker Prasad. Riding, tennis and gymming each, are two days a week and Sundays I sleep for as long as I don’t wake up!
They say behind every successful man is his wife: tell us something about your family.
Certainly. My wife, Dr Shashi Jindel has been my sheet anchor for all these years. She has been the ‘go to’ person in thick and thin. She is also the leading gynecologist in Kolkata. I have two sons and a daughter-in-law. All of them working and settled in Singapore. The Lord has been kind to me.
Dr.Rajesh Jindel, Director, Medella Cancer Cure Centrer
Dr.Rajesh has completed his MBBS 1984 and MD in Radiotherapy(1987)from Sawai Mansingh Medical College, Jaipur, University of Rajasthan. An oncologist, practicing for more than 30+ years, Dr.Rajesh has been associated with various Hospitals and Medical Institutions in India and overseas including AIIMS, New Delhi and Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai from India, and King Fahd Specialist Hospital Saudi Arabia. Dr. Rajesh is also acknowledged as an esteemed member of Indian Cooperative Oncology Network (ICON)and Association of Radiation oncologists'of India(AROI).
What is the current position of India in terms of providing eminent cancer cure facilities at a global level? What more can we expect from this segment in the future?
Cancer care requires a whole lot of things to be done in this country. To give you an example, WHO recommends for middle and low-income countries have a linear accelerator for a million population, and being a country with a population of 135 crores, we need more than 13,500 linear accelerators, approximately. West Bengal has a population of some where 9-10 crores, and accordingly, we will need about 9200 linear accelerators to cater to our population here in West Bengal. But we only have 20 to 25 linear accelerators now. Similarly, there is an extremely short supply of cancer treatment beds or surgical beds, which are generally used for chemotherapy. As a result of this, people give up, because the closest landmark where they can find all these facilities is more than 300-400 kilometers away, and the patient can't afford to live in a new place in his/he condition. Since prices are all shooting up and everything is becoming quite expensive, it becomes difficult for people to afford cancer treatment, or maybe any other treatment also, for that matter. I think we need to find ways to finance cancer treatment, maybe through insurance policies, government support, crowd funding, philanthropic institutions, and charity-minded people. We need government and well-wishers of our present society to take cancer treatment seriously, and speed up our efforts with ten times more intensity in this direction. According to me, once the cancer treatment gets broader, the cost for it also would be contained.
India does not lack the expertise to treat cancer: we lack infrastructure. Our oncologist are as good as anywhere else and given the increasing number of cancer cases we need more and more of them. The current ratio is 1:1600 one oncologist for 1600 patients. The ideal ratio is 1:400. For middle and low income countries the WHO recommends one linear accelerator for every ten lakh people (in the US and Western Europe it is one for every two and a half lakh people). For our population of 135 crores (and rising)we need more than 1300 radiation machines but we have less than 500 working machines. About fifteen percent of these machines have to be replaced every year, having lived their useful lives. Out of the 640 districts in India only 40 have a radiation unit available in the local hospital. People from other districts have to travel long distances for radiation and may be for other cancer treatments as well. Similarly, hospital beds required for treating cancer patients are only about one fifth of what they should be. It is estimated that we need more than thirty thousand beds all over the country to cater to cancer patients the available number is only about six thousand.
Treatment costs are a very important part of the cancer landscape. Although cancer treatment costs five to six times less in India than the west, it is still not affordable for a significant majority of our people. A miniscule percentage of people have any kind of health insurance cover. Only twenty percent of households have an annual income of more than two lakh rupees which is just about enough to cover the base line treatment costs.
We need to find ways to finance cancer treatment maybe through insurance policies, government support crowd funding, philan thropic institutions, and charity-minded people. We need government and well wishers in the society to take cancer treatment seriously. We need to notch up our efforts higher by several orders of magnitude to create the infrastructure to contain and treat this disease.
Dr. Jindel with so much on your mind tell us how do you unwind? What else do you engage in besides oncology?
Good question. I read. I am particularly fond of classic hindi poetry Kabir, Tulsi, Rahim, Guptji and Jai Shanker Prasad. Riding, tennis and gymming each, are two days a week and Sundays I sleep for as long as I don’t wake up!
They say behind every successful man is his wife: tell us something about your family.
Certainly. My wife, Dr Shashi Jindel has been my sheet anchor for all these years. She has been the ‘go to’ person in thick and thin. She is also the leading gynecologist in Kolkata. I have two sons and a daughter-in-law. All of them working and settled in Singapore. The Lord has been kind to me.
Dr.Rajesh Jindel, Director, Medella Cancer Cure Centrer
Dr.Rajesh has completed his MBBS 1984 and MD in Radiotherapy(1987)from Sawai Mansingh Medical College, Jaipur, University of Rajasthan. An oncologist, practicing for more than 30+ years, Dr.Rajesh has been associated with various Hospitals and Medical Institutions in India and overseas including AIIMS, New Delhi and Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai from India, and King Fahd Specialist Hospital Saudi Arabia. Dr. Rajesh is also acknowledged as an esteemed member of Indian Cooperative Oncology Network (ICON)and Association of Radiation oncologists'of India(AROI).