Ailing husband’s medicine or children’s school fee, dowry preparation for daughter or wife’s chemotherapy, radiation for a parent or son’s admission in a medical college – over the years cancer not only claimed human lives, it crushed dreams of a mother, hopes of a father, plans of an eight-year-old.
It made people choose among necessities, priorities i.e. medicine over 3 meals a day, treatment at the cost of kids’ education. It has shattered the affected families, obviously because of the lives lost but most importantly in an attempt to save their loved ones by selling their properties and everything they possessed. Apart from God’s will what could help these families fight the crisis is availability of free medicines.Cancer is not a curse for rich and poor alike, those who can’t afford to have it treated know how this fatal disease has not only taken away their loved ones from them but their smiles too.
Punjab government in collaboration with Novartis Pharmaceutical company is providing free treatment facilities to the blood cancer patients, and during the last three years medicines of Rs. 13 billion have been provided to them. As 2017 marks the 4th year, 100% free of cost treatment for all CML/GIST patients of Punjab was ensured.
Reports anticipate 90% survival rate at the completion of the 4th year, with compliance over 85%, most of those who recovered are living a successful life and contributing towards the society. The program is covering all 36 districts of Punjab while maintaining a record for the patients.
The program was initiated back in 2014 with four centers that includes Jinnah Hospital Lahore, Holy Family Hospital Rawalpindi, Allied Hospital Faisalabad and Nishtar Hospital Multan, two more being added. The government is closely monitoring the progress and facilitating the registered patients across the province.
This doesn’t end here; Punjab Government in collaboration with Novartis entered into an agreement to provide medicines worth 44 billion to cancer patients during the next 5 years.
As I said above, those who have been through or have been shaken by their ordeal bearing cancer, can suffer the pain. Shehbaz Sharif who himself fought this disease can relate to pain and the gloom in the eyes of a loved one. I heard him saying, “No act of faith can be better than serving the ailing humanity”. He said he firmly believed Allah had given him a new life only to serve the masses and ailing humanity. He took the step, so nobody would lose the battle against cancer due to non-availability of medicines ever.
This by far is one of the best initiatives taken by the government in health initiatives, as an average person’s salary does not allow a common man to afford the costly treatments of cancer. Cancer drugs are very expensive and the cost of treatment in Pakistan, for a single patient can vary from Rs500,000 to Rs1million and even more.
Pakistan is one of 62 countries in which the age-standardized death rates for all cancers increased rather than decrease between 1990 and 2013, says a report titled The Global Burden of Cancer 2013. According to the leading organisation in cancer control (Union for International Cancer Control) 8.2 million patients die of cancer every year across the globe and about 1.4m new patients get affected.
Lung cancer in Pakistan is very common among men due to smoking habits, nutritional and hormonal factors while breast and cervical cancer has also been found to be highly prevalent in the country among women. Lack of access to quality medical advice, early diagnosis, timely treatment and essential medications are the reasons why people with cancer in developing countries often do not survive.
The cure rate among adult patients suffering from blood cancer is about 85 percent and 70 percent among children if diagnosed early. However, we need to work on our eating habits too, you wouldn’t get affected by almost half of the diseases if you eat healthy.
SABA YOUSAF
The writer is a journalist by profession. She is also a blogger, pursuing her MPhil degree in journalism.
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