PESHAWAR: There has been an unprecedented rise in the number of cancer patients in the past few years in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but all the successive governments could not make serious efforts to either expand the present limited services at the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) or set up more departments of oncology in the province to overcome the ever-growing cancer patients and their agonies.
The only oncology department set up in the HMC in 2006, with 18 beds, is yet to be expanded for handling the growing number of cancer patients in KP. In 2006 when the oncology department was established, there were 18 beds and one room for the outpatient department (OPD), one each assistant professor and registrar one and three nurses and 10-15 patients would come to the OPD twice a week. It was one of the most neglected specialities in the province but Prof Dr Abid Jameel took his personal interest and successfully highlighted suffering of cancer patients and conveyed their grievances to the high-ups in the government.
In 2011, the coalition government of Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) for the first time took practical measures for the cancer patients and free blood cancer treatment started for chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) patients at the HMC only. Initially, it was only meant for the patients of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but later the government included cancer patients of the tribal areas as well.
The first government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was initially reluctant to continue the programme of free cancer treatment as it was named after the late Begam Nusrat Bhutto, mother of the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
However, the then chief minister, Pervez Khattak later agreed to continue it when nomenclature of the programme was changed. The PTI government in 2016 took a very positive step by extending the free treatment programme for patients of all types of cancer.
Prof Dr Abid Jameel had a matchless contribution to the oncology services and its development in KP. His efforts yielded good results when the College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPSP) recognised the medical oncology department of the HMC for postgraduate training in medical oncology under the supervision of Prof Dr Abid Jameel.
In KP, the oncology department of HMC is still the only unit accredited by the CPSP for providing postgraduate training in medical oncology.
According to officials of hospital, 15 trainee medical officers (TMOs) are currently pursuing their postgraduate training or FCPS training out of which seven had completed their training in June 2020. Presently, the oncology department had registered more than 6000 patients for free cancer treatment and the number is rapidly increasing with each passing day. It is stated to be an overburdened department in HMC as more than 20,000 patients are seen in the department annually.
The present HMC administration and its Board of Governors (BoG) has acknowledged services of the oncology department and increased its staff members, including a professor, associate professor, specialist registrar, two registrars, three medical officers (MOs) and four trainees.
Also, three more rooms have been provided for oncology OPD as the department has now four days a week OPD. According to the hospital sources, the number of patients per OPD has increased to 140 from 10-15 in 2006 but the space of the oncology department is yet to be increased or present services extended.
In 2006 when the department was first established and there used come 10-15 patients to OPD, and oncology department had 18 beds at that time.
Now when the department had four days of OPD in a week where 150 patients are seen in every OPD, not a single bed has been added to the department since 2006. And despite an increase in the number of cancer patients, the infrastructure has not changed, resulting in long waiting lists for admissions.
Interestingly, in 2014, the then chief minister Pervez Khattak had announced the construction of a separate building for oncology department, but neither he nor his successor took practical measures to fulfil their commitment.
An official of the hospital administration told The News that head of Medical Oncology, Prof Abid Jameel on his level made several attempts to seek the attention of the government for expanding the infrastructure of oncology services.
“Prof Dr Abid Jameel had a tremendous commitment to the oncology department but he couldn’t succeed in his mission of expanding the oncology services either due to lack of will at the government level, lack of funds or lack of land,” said an official of the HMC. Pleading anonymity, he said OPD facilities, the number of specialists and number of doctors and trainees had increased, treatment facilities have improved and the number of patients grown tremendously, however, there is a serious problem of lack of space for them and the patients.
In order to cope with the ever-increasing number of cancer patients, there is a dire need of new purpose-built oncology building to provide all services under one roof. And to overcome this major problem, the hospital’s BoG and the government would need to arrange funds and land to cater to cancer patients of the province.
