PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to increase the budget for free cancer treatment by 15 per cent in the upcoming fiscal year due to increase in the number of patients, according to officials.

They said that about 3,000 patients had benefited so far from the free cancer treatment programme launched by the government in 2012. Under the programme, Rs900 million has been spent on free diagnosis and treatment of the patients at the oncology ward of Hayatabad Medical Complex, Peshawar.

“There is an annual increase of 15 per cent in patients due to awareness of free treatment programme among the people. We have been holding awareness programmes for public and doctors throughout the province due to which the number of patients is increasing,” Prof Abid Jameel, head of the HMC’s oncology ward, told this scribe.

Dr Jameel said that the KP government had allocated Rs460 million for the programme in 2016-17 which would be increased to about Rs510 milion in the coming budget. He said that the continuous awareness drive regarding cancer had resulted in the early detection and cure of patients. He said that cure rate of patients had also improved because most of the patients came to the doctors in second or third stage, making their treatment possible.

HMC spending Rs10m to enhance space for patients at oncology ward

However, he said that they could not deny treatment to those who were coming in the last stage of cancer and started their treatment to improve their lifestyle and prolonged their life span by one to two years. “Generally, we have 65 per cent cure rate among adult patients and 90 per cent among children who are 20 per cent of the all patients,” he said.

He said that the cure rate among adult patients suffering from blood cancer was about 85 per cent and 70 per cent among children.

Dr Jameel said that the HMC administration was spending Rs10 million to enhance space at the oncology ward and benefit more patients. Currently, the bed strength was 20 for admission and seven beds for daycare chemotherapy which would be increased with the passage of time.

“About 85 per cent treatment of patients is free of cost under the programme, while they receive supportive treatment from the hospital,” he said. The programme doesn’t include medicines for pain, fever and vomiting, etc that were either given from the hospital pharmacy or brought from the market by the patients.

Dr Jameel said that cancer drugs were very expensive and the cost of treatment of a single patient was between Rs500,000 and Rs1million and even more. He said that they had also included patients from Fata in the free treatment programme despite objections from some quarters because 20 per cent patients belonged to tribal areas where they lacked any treatment programme.

Dr Jameel said that prior to inclusion of Fata patients they had sent a request for money to the relevant authorities, but got no response. He said that it was the chief minister and secretary health who ordered their free treatment on humanitarian grounds.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2017