AS per a report in a national daily the Health Minister has said that the government would launch cancer units at district level hospitals in phases and he called upon the rich people of the country to purchase the equipment and donate them to the government hospitals so that the poor people could be benefitted as quoted from a round-table conference titled ‘Cancer Treatment in Bangladesh: Problems and Prospects’ organized by Daily Prothom Alo and Beacon Pharmaceuticals.Cancer is emerging as a plague in Bangladesh with nearly three lakh people being affected by the disease every year. Bad food habits, smoking, adulterated food and environmental pollution are some of the common causes of cancer. When the biggest cancer hospital in the country was built in 1989, it had only outdoor facilities. It is now a 300-bed hospital. Although hospital beds for cancer patients have been increased, it is inadequate in comparison to the mammoth quantity of the patients. According to WHO, Bangladesh should have at least 160 radiotherapy centers considering its population; but the country has only 16 – nine government hospitals, six private hospitals and one Combined Military Hospital. Outside the capital, government hospitals in Rajshahi, Bogra, Barisal, Mymensingh, Rangpur, Sylhet and Chittagong have radiotherapy machines and many of them were bought at least 20 years ago and do not function properly. This vulnerable circumstance of cancer treatment across the country has assisted in making conditions disastrous for the patients as a report says that in Bangladesh, cancer casualty is very high as up to 90 percent patients report it at the last stage.At government hospitals, a full course of radiotherapy costs between Tk 15,000 and Tk 30,000. Most of those who go to public hospitals belong to lower and lower-middle income groups. Many of them cannot afford the cost and give up halfway through the treatment. At private hospitals, the cost is between Tk 1 lakh and 2.5 lakh which are by no means affordable costs for the people of a low income country.Majority of the patients in the country seek treatment when their cancer is at the advanced stage when they need radiotherapy. In this context, prior scanning with providing sophisticated equipment is necessary; but we hardly have any. So, experts suggest that to better treat cancer, the government must have sufficient data regarding cancer patients across the country. Public-private joint-venture and donors may play a crucial role for the existing and prospective cancer patients of the country.
