PESHAWAR: The government has approved expansion of services at medical oncology ward of the public sector medical teaching institution Hayatabad Medical Complex to cope with increasing number of cancer patients.

“We are establishing ‘12-bed day care chemotherapy bay’ due to load of cancer patients at the hospital. It will cost about Rs150 million and facilitate around 24 patients, who require only chemotherapy after which they will be sent home,” Prof Abid Jameel, head of medical oncology ward at HMC, told Dawn.

He said that they had recently renovated the ward and expanded the outpatient department and pharmacy centres as part of the plan by the hospital’s administration to scale up services and facilitate more patients.

Rs150 million to be spent on 12-bed day care chemotherapy bay

Prof Abid said that a new demonstration room was also established to facilities the training of nine doctors for specialisation in oncology. He said that every year, they would induct doctors for training in oncology.

Currently, there are only two wards of oncology in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — one in HMC and another in Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad.

These wards cater to the needs of patients from the whole province as well as Fata.

“As of now, we are admitting patients for chemotherapy in the 20-bed ward only for a few hours due to which the patients requiring hospitalisation suffer. The day care bay would be utilised for the patients, who are brought here only for chemotherapy and the ward would take only seriously-ill people, who can’t be managed in their homes,” said Prof Abid.

He said that by April, the new day care centre would be ready to take patients. He said they would acquire beds and equipment to make it state-of-the-art facility.

“We are going to seek technical assistance from Shaukat Khanum Memorial and Cancer Centre Peshawar in the establishment of the day care bay. It has already imparted training to people working in pharmacy. We would request for training of two nurses,” he said.

He said that the ward was established in 2005 at HMC but the number of patients was increasing every month. He said that presently, they received about 1,100 patients per month. He added that the patients were given free medication regardless of their financial status.

“We have spent Rs1.3 billion on the free treatment of patients. The programme has been benefiting the patients, who can’t afford the costly investigation and treatment,” said Prof Abid. He said that minimum expenditure per patient was Rs100, 000 while the maximum cost was more than Rs1 million.

He said that 3,500 patients received free services so far. The OPD runs four day a week while chemotherapy day care operates six days a week.

“The government has released Rs335 million out of the sanctioned amount of 497million for the current fiscal year for free treatment programme and the rest of the amount will be transferred to HMC very soon,” he said.

Prof Abid said that they registered 1,200 patients for free treatment in the current fiscal year. They suffered from blood, throat, esophagus, lungs and other type of cancers, he said.

“Alongside free treatment services, we also conduct seminars in district hospitals where doctors are trained on examination and diagnosis of the patients. Each type of cancer is fully curable provided the patients come in early stage of the ailment. The number of patients is increasing because of the awareness among the doctors and the patients,” said Prof Abid.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2018