Rabeya Ferdousi, a 37-year-old house maker, was passing a happy family life with loving corporate husband and adorable kids despite facing various daily urban odds in the mega city.
Everything was going fine for Rabeya except suffering from periodic fever in the last few months. Though she did not care the fevers considering those as simple flu, Rabeya’s husband took her to see a physician. After diagnosis, doctor had found Rabyea is in the last stage of leukemia.
Though Bangladesh is advancing fast towards ensuring a modern health care system to all of its citizens, it is still fighting hard in curbing few diseases including cancer. Cancer is always a deadly disease for both male and female.
According to surveys, it is stated that females of Bangladesh are more exposed to cancer compared to their male counterpart.
A recent research found that nearly six crore of the country’s women are in danger of cancer in some extent. Every year, 12,000 women are being affected by only survival cancers and of them, 6,000 ended up with deaths.
Oncologist professor Dr M Ehteshamul Haque said currently cancer is the sixth deadly disease in Bangladesh in terms of numbers of deaths annually.
Currently, he said nearly 20 lakh people of Bangladesh have been suffering from different kinds of cancer where every year two lakh more are being affected. Two lakh fifty thousand people of the country died for cancer annually.
In Bangladesh, 16.9 percent of women are affected by breast cancer, 15.5 percent by cervical cancer and 11.9 percent by endometrial cancer.
Dr Haque said most of the women come to see a physician with final stage of cancer due to lack of awareness. “When a patient comes to us at her final stage of cancer, we got very little to do. Especially, women don’t aware of breast cancer as they don’t feel any pain in this kind of cancer.
He laid emphasis on creating awareness about symptoms of different kinds of cancer. The women need to see doctors regularly to check whether she is suffering from any form of cancer, Dr Haque suggested.
The oncologist said the number of cancer specialist doctors is very nominal in Bangladesh compare to huge numbers of patients as there are only 150 cancer specialists all over the country.
Apart from that most of the hospitals have no cancer center or unit, he said, adding on top of that the cancer diagnosis apparatus is not that much available in the country.
Dhaka Medical College Hospital’s Register Dr Saidur Rahman Sohag said most of the cancers are deadly, and for that it is important to diagnose the disease at early stage.
He said most of the time cancer goes at the final stage internally before getting diagnosed. It is very difficult to cure a cancer patient from the final stage, Sohag added.
He said women are usually reluctant to see a doctor regularly. They used to take medicine on their own in case of fever. They don’t know that continuous low fever is a symptom of lung cancer.
He suggested all especially the women to undergo a medical checkup every year.
