Hyderabad: 25k cancer-affected declared untreatable a month by major city hosps

Hyderabad: Each month, 20,000-25,000 patients reach the end stage of treatment and are declared untreatable by the five to six prominent hospitals treating cancer in the city. Also there are an estimated 2,000-3,000 HIV and TB (tuberculosis) patients who reach-end stage of treatment each year. While these end stage patients (3- 3.5 lakh each year) continue to have multiple health issues and sudden emergencies, which require medical management, the city has only two palliative care centres and one hospice, together having the capacity of 100- 120 beds.

The terminally ill often experience excruciating pain and sudden complications during their last days. Palliative care is essential to reduce pain and emotional stress and improve functional aspects of a patient battling end-stage disease. Explaining the requirement, Dr Jayalatha, director MNJ Institute of Cancer said, “The fact that pain killers and sedative drugs like morphine are licensed only for use in palliative care centres, hints at the level of pain these patients experience. Since the disease cannot be treated anymore, in palliative care, only symptoms are managed like fluid fills in abdomen, a nerve burst and pain,” said Dr N Jayalatha, director, MNJ Cancer Hospital, adding that around 100 patients coming to the hospital each day reach the end stage.

Despite a huge need for setting up palliative care centres, little attention is paid to the issue, primarily because it’s not profitable to set up such centres, unlike setting up hospitals. “There is no doubt that palliative care services need to be ramped up to cater to the demands of increasing incidence of NCDs. Corporate hospitals have not got into this as palliative care is not highly profitable business,” said Mujtaba Hussain Aksari, founder Helping Hand Foundation, which runs one of the two palliative care centres in the city in association with another NGO.

While the waiting period can sometimes stretch up to a year, in case of cancer patients, it takes a toll on the entire family both emotionally and financially. “After spending huge amounts of money on cancer treatment, often by selling off land and gold, we see family members losing out on their jobs as they have to dedicate more time to their family member who has reached the end stage. Not only are they emotionally traumatised by seeing their loved one in extreme physical pain and going through hardships themselves, often families end up abandoning such patients after losing everything themselves. It is a heartbreaking sight to see every single day,” said a senior doctor at one of the cancer hospitals in the city.