Cancer cases on decline in Doaba region, says research

Avneet Kaur

Jalandhar, June 25

Under the Chief Minister’s Cancer Relief Fund scheme, a comprehensive available data of under-treatment cancer patients has revealed that the Doaba region has comparatively less cancer cases this year.

Rather, Malwa, the cotton belt of South and South-West Punjab, as per the International Journal of Current Research in Multidisciplinary (IJCRM), published in July last year, is still the worst-hit region by cancer in the state.

Experts monitoring the data say the pattern of cancer prevalence is much similar to other diseases as the number of patients is high in the district where population is high and in case of Jalandhar, 76 cases have been received in the past four months and the major reason behind the decline in the cases is people here are much aware and do not take things casually. Instead, they prefer consulting a doctor for even minor causalities or symptoms.

One of the patients Jeetu Devi, who is suffering from lung cancer and is about to start with the treatment from Capitol Hospital said: “The hospital has received the amount of Rs 1.5 lakh from the government under the scheme, but I could not start with the treatment as my body is weak and requires sufficient calcium intake to begin the treatment. Moreover, the hospital authorities have also claimed that they would not be providing any extra funds if the amount exceeds to Rs 1.5 lakh. I hope extra money is not required as we cannot pull out any money for the treatment with our monthly income of Rs 15,000.”

A breast cancer patient, Prakash Kaur, who had gone through the treatment in April from the Patel Hospital, here, narrated: “We have received the amount for the complete treatment. Even now after treatment, some medicines are recommended to me by the doctor which are quite expensive but are available to me free of cost but it takes a lot of time in completing the paper work and till then the treatment not gets started.”

Ajit Singh is suffering from neck cancer and could not talk to The Tribune due to his ill-health. His son Satnam Singh shared: “Doctors keep on prescribing one after the other tests and do not give much attention to the case. They recommend medicines one after the other which do no fall in our budget. We received the amount of Rs 66,000 and as told by the doctors it will cost Rs 66,000 only for the complete treatment but the single injection that is recommended costs Rs 15,000. My father has been prescribed to have chemotherapy but due to weakness he could not bear the therapy to which no alternative has been told to us by the doctor.”

Civil Surgeon Maninder Kaur Minhas in a conversation with The Tribune said: “Beneficiaries face no problem in receiving funds, verification of the person’s identity and residential proof is required to claim treatment under the scheme, we have full record of the data of those “under-treatment” patients, who, since 2012, are availing financial help under the scheme.

Despite decades of hue and cry over the issue, any authentic data on cancer patients is still non-existent in Punjab but as the scheme is open for all cancer patients who are residents of the state, except government employees, experts opine that the data presented shows a fair picture of the disease spread.