LAHORE: The Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, in a correspondence with the Punjab health department, says about 140,000 new cases of cancer are appearing in Pakistan every year.

The shocking statistics about the alarmingly high incidence of cancer was officially confirmed first time since there was no mechanism or national registry in the country to evaluate the actual burden of the deadly disease and the number of people affected by it.

Pakistan has been depending upon the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other global health partners to get updates on many diseases, including cancer. The information was shared in the wake of the World Cancer Day being observed on Wednesday (today).

The ministry also admitted failure of the government in establishing national registry, categorically stating that there was neither a cancer registry in Pakistan nor a coordinated nation-wide effort to combat the diseases like cancer.

Country has no mechanism to register cancer cases

“Cancer is one of the most dreadful diseases worldwide and the rising incidence of different types of cancer has been reported in Pakistan,” the ministry told the Punjab health authorities.

It said that in order to manage and control cancer it was essential to collect data regularly so that risk factors could be identified and the population was educated accordingly.

“One of the strategies of the federal government is to establish cancer registry in the country for obtaining such data,” the ministry added.

It informed the Punjab health department that keeping in view the increasing number of cancer cases in the country the federal government had taken a critical decision in this regard.

“The Pakistan Medical Research Council (PMRC) has initiated a project for establishment of cancer registry in major public and private hospitals of Pakistan,” the ministry said.

The project has been approved by the technical advisory committee (TAC) of the PMRC and the study would be conducted at tertiary care hospitals all over the country in three phases – situation analysis of current data collection practices, establishment of data collection process and development of uniform data collection system.

The disease’s burden is alarmingly increasing while the treatment and health infrastructure for the cancer patients is in a deplorable condition in Punjab.

According to the official figures, obtained from the health department, only four teaching hospitals out of the total 23 of Punjab have cancer units and they too are in a dilapidated condition. The hospitals include Jinnah Hospital, Mayo Hospital, Nishtar Hospital Multan, and Allied Hospital Faisalabad.

Moreover, the official figures further paint a gloomy picture in respect of poor state of health affairs for the cancer patients from low profile districts, stating that all the 34 district headquarter hospitals of the province have not a single unit for the treatment of this highly deadly disease.

Similarly, all the posts of senior medics at the cancer units of these teaching institutions are lying vacant for the last many years. Consequently, cancer patients are being attended largely by the doctors of the other disciplines particularly of the general surgery.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2015

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