ISLAMABAD, March 12: The government has rejected a proposal to establish a separate cancer research institute in the public sector.
An informed source told Dawn that the health ministry had opposed the proposal on the grounds that such an initiative required constant flow of funds and, therefore, would be an expensive proposition, especially when the health resources were limited.
Pakistan has no such institution for exclusive research on cancer in the public sector. In the private sector, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust is doing some research in this regard. A large number of plants and herbs are found in the country that can be used for the treatment of the deadly disease.
The proposal to establish the cancer research institute was floated during a series of workshops organized as part of the National Cancer Control Project.
Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) executive director Prof Azhar Mahmood Qureshi is also acting as the national coordinator of National Cancer Control Project. Talking to Dawn, he said: “Though, it is difficult to set up a cancer institute in the public sector, we intend to establish such a centre, possibly at Pims, with the financial assistance of the WHO and National Cancer Institute of the United States.”
However, he admitted that running such a centre was very expensive in terms of human resources, equipment and recurring expenditures.
He said the workshops had recommended to register cancer patients at the proposed cancer institute’s headquarters in Islamabad. Another proposal suggested to set up breast and cervix cancer screening clinics at different teaching hospitals, both at the centre and the provinces.
Prof Qureshi said two doctors from Pakistan were being sent to Lyon (France) in October this year for training in cancer. He said two doctors would be send for the training every year.
Meanwhile, a source said 90 per cent of the federal health budget, under the Public Sector Development Programme, was spent on prevention of communicable diseases, and for provision of primary health care in the provinces.
Therefore, establishment of a separate cancer research hospital was low on the government’s priority list.
The source said the oncology department/radiotherapy facilities were available in major government hospitals like Pims and Children Hospital, Islamabad, for both adults and children.
Such facilities are also available at the Jinnah Post Graduate Medical College, Karachi, while arrangements are being made to provide these facilities at the NICH, Karachi.
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission also runs a number of nuclear medical centres for radiotherapy at Karachi, Jamshoro, Larkana, Multan, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar.
In addition to providing treatment, these centres register cancer patients and send clinical data to the Pakistan Medical Research Council.
The Pims executive director said six per cent of the women population in Pakistan was prone to breast cancer, whereas, in Norway and Sweden, the percentage was about 11.
He said the inclusion of Hepatitis vaccine in the immunization campaign was a good step on behalf of the government, since the liver cancer was increasing due to the spread of Hepatitis.
Prof Qureshi said, though, the life expectancy of the population had increased steadily due to improved nutrition and better control of infectious diseases, the danger of cancer was increasing owing to environmental pollution.
He stressed that careful planning should be done for developing screening programmes for malignancies like cancers of breast, colon-rectum, lung, cervix etc.