PESHAWAR: The health department has ordered purchasing medicines worth Rs1.1 billion for free distribution among cancer patients in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The project entitled “Free Treatment of Poor Cancer Patients” was started in 2011 in collaboration with a multinational pharmaceutical firm.

According to officials, more than 4,000 patients have benefited from the project so far. Initially, only blood cancer patients were given free medicines under the programme but later all types of cancer were included in it due to costly medication of the ailment.

Under the project, patients received anti-cancer drugs at Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), Peshawar. However, the programme was partially suspended in July last year due to lack of funds.

Dr Ijaz Ahmad, acting project director of the programme, told Dawn that the adviser on health to chief minister ordered procurement of medicines on emergency basis to resume free medication of cancer patients.

More than 4,000 people have benefited from free treatment project

“We have floated tenders and would receive bids from the aspiring firms after which necessary formalities will be fulfilled to start procurement of medicines,” he said.

According to him, the government has approved a PC-1 of Rs3.1 billion for three years and has planned to convert the project into a regular programme to enable cancer patients to continue availing free medicines without any hindrance in future.

Dr Ijaz said that the health department had also written a letter to finance department to ensure availability of funds because the health adviser had given eight weeks time for procurement of drugs and resumption of the process of giving free medicines to patients.

In the past the patients received medication only in HMC but now the government has decided to provide free drugs to them in Lady Reading Hospital and Khyber Teaching Hospital Peshawar and Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad where oncologists are available.

At a later stage, patients would start getting medicines in Swat and Dera Ismail Khan also where the health department was making efforts to make available services of oncologists, he said. “We are going to start the process of procurement on fast track. Patients would start receiving free drugs by end of April or early May,” he said.

Dr Ijaz said that treatment of cancer was very expensive, therefore, many patients could not afford it. He said that the programme was meant to provide free treatment to all cancer patients from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the newly-merged districts.

Oncologists said that many patients didn’t receive timely medication due to suspension of the programme and its resumption would help them.

According to them, the cure rate among adult patients suffering from blood cancer is about 85 per cent. The cure rate among children suffering from blood cancer is 70 per cent.

They said that the cost of treatment of a single patient was between Rs500,000 to Rs1million and even more. However, they said that they could not deny treatment to those, who visited them in the last stage of cancer and started their treatment to improve their lifestyle and prolonged their life span by one to two years.

The experts said that even patients in third stage, who were not fully curable, got free drugs to prolong their lives.

They said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the only province where patients received free services and treatment regardless of their financial status.

Oncologists asked the government to expand the free medication programme to other cities of the province because patients travelled to Peshawar which also deteriorated their health as well as cost them money.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2023