PESHAWAR: The government’s plan to expand services for cancer patients is yet to see light of the day due to non-allocation of funds promised four years ago, according to sources.

Officials said that the chief minister had approved establishment of ‘centre of medical oncology and hospice’ at Hayatabad Medical Complex in 2014 but the project is yet to begin due to lack of funds.

The first 20-bed medical oncology ward was established in 1999 at Khyber Teaching Hospital in a makeshift arrangement that was shifted to Hayatabad Medical Complex in 2006.

Project could not be initiated owing to lack of funds

There is no expansion as the strength of beds remains the same while number of patients has been increasing rapidly. Under the proposed plan, the HMC administration had agreed to provide land for establishment the centre, comprising 40 beds for patients’ treatment, and 28-bed hospice for the terminally-ill patients as the existing ward isn’t enough to cope with the patients’ load from the entire province.

Prof Abid Jameel, head of the medical oncology ward at HMC, said that government wanted to expand services for cancer patients. He said that the plan would be included in the next year Annual Development Programme.

“The government isn’t including new schemes in the ADP this year. We need to increase beds as well as establish hospice that would be the first in the country to provide supportive treatment to the patients, whose treatment isn’t possible but their lifestyle can be improved,” he said.

Prof Abid said that government was spending Rs500 million on the free treatment of cancer patients per year. He said that they treated 4,000 patients so far. He added that expansion of services would benefit more patients.

Not only beds, but shortage of medical oncologists has been hampering prompt diagnosis of cancer patients in the province as there are only two medical oncology wards, one each in Peshawar and Abbottabad, owing to which the patients cannot be investigated properly at the district level and mortality from cancer has been rising.

Most of the patients reach medical oncology wards in the third and fourth stage of cancer, which aren’t curable because of lack of services in the district hospitals.

Most of the patients are coming from Peshawar, Swabi, Mardan, Mansehra and Swat etc due to awareness campaigns regarding signs and symptoms of cancers by medical oncologists and the local doctors refer them to HMC or Abbottabad.

The HMC has two medical oncologists and Abbottabad has one. The HMC is recognised for the postgraduate training of doctors for specialisation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan and at present eight doctors have been enrolled for training to produce more specialists and improve the prospectus of diagnosis and treatment of patients.

The 12-bed unit in Abbottabad isn’t recognised for training of doctors and cannot produce specialists.

Prof Abid said that it would take at least three years to prepare trained medical oncologists and put in place facilities at the divisional level. A few doctors have also been pursuing their MPhil and PhD at Khyber Medical University that will pave the way for research on the prevalence and causes of different types of cancers in different areas of the province. It will enable the government to devise strategies to cope with the situation.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2018