Government’s approach to cancer care: A tragic case of misplaced priorities

Cancer treatment merits a deeper, relentless probe through a proper assessment of the immunological status and genomic aspects of each case. It calls for a multi-disciplinary approach aimed at providing the right treatment, the very first time. Any intervention based on hasty conclusions invariably leads to cancer recurrence, which often proves life-threatening, apart from the financial and psychological hardships patients and their family members have to undergo in the process.
The 2025 budget announcement of setting up 200 cancer daycare centres across various districts in a phased manner, on the face of it, sounds like a sterling healthcare commitment from the government. Far from it, there couldn’t have been a more flawed approach to a complex disease of many types and sub types. Every case of cancer, even of the same type, can be starkly different from each other, which means we can’t have a factory-like one-size-fits-all approach to cancer care. Cancer treatment merits a deeper, relentless probe through a proper assessment of the immunological status and genomic aspects of each case. It calls for a multi-disciplinary approach aimed at providing the right treatment, the very first time. Any intervention based on hasty conclusions invariably leads to cancer recurrence, which often proves life-threatening, apart from the financial and psychological hardships
patients and their family members have to undergo in the process.
The idea of rolling out day care cancer centres pan India is hence impractical in every respect. How will the government recruit competent doctors, nurses and support staff to run these centres? How will it ensure that the patients would avail of timely and quality care? As it is, the quality of healthcare penetration in Tier 2 and 3 cities remains a formidable challenge in India.
The government should instead focus on cancer prevention where a lot can be achieved through proactive measures. Cancer is increasing at a rapid pace in India, more so in the age groups of 40-60. India is seeing more and more cases of head and neck cancers, which is extremely worrisome given that they are among the most difficult to treat. What we know for sure that their main cause is tobacco usage in all forms, and yet, we are looking the other way when the solution is staring straight at us. Why can’t the government take the bold step of banning tobacco usage in all forms while providing feasible alternatives to protect livelihoods?
Tobacco is a bigger threat than it is perceived to be, given the derived curse of passive smoking. Almost 35 to 40 percent of cancers can be prevented by simply eradicating tobacco. If the government is worried about the loss of revenue to the value chain of farmers and manufactures apart from tax collections, it can explore routes of alternate farming and manufacturing options, but it needs to act tough on this manufactured moot point.
Cancer is a lifestyle disease caused by inflammation triggered by many other factors apart from tobacco, like obesity, chemicals and pesticides in food, and environmental pollution. The government must take immediate action to arrest food contamination, and adopt environment-friendly practices including large-scale organic farming.
Above all, the government must proactively sponsor fundamental cancer research and rope in the private sector to develop protocols tailored for the Indian populace, not those meant for Caucasians. More thrust needs to be given to artificial Intelligence to make diagnosis accurate, minimize relapse risks, and reduce mortality rates.
Rather than promote medical tourism and inviting private hospitals to collaborate in the effort, the government should institutionalize a robust universal care model and urge private industrialists to contribute to the corpus. Only a full-fledged universal care can bring in uniformity of treatment through the cross-subsidy model, thereby lessening the financial strain and eliminating the debt traps for the common people of the country. We see nothing announced in this direction, in budget after budget.
If the government is serious about winning the war against cancer, high time it launched a decisive foray in the right direction. Results will follow earlier than expected if the government focuses on cancer prevention, research and development, and creates an enabling environment for cancer care in the capacity of a monitoring agency, not as a cancer care provider.
Source : Economictimes