Unsafe practices

This refers to the letter ‘Cancer hospitals’ (August 3). As someone who has been to Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital (SKMCH) quite a few times, I’ve noticed that critically ill patients from Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) are brought to the hospital’s walk-in clinic on a daily basis. Due to capacity constraints, most of them don’t make it through the rigorous screening process and are not accepted to be treated at the country’s only tertiary cancer centre.

As we demand a cancer hospital or screening centres for Balochistan, we need to push the government to look for the factors that are responsible for a surge in the number of cancer patients. How are people from these areas being affected? Is there anything we don’t know? It is a common knowledge that uranium mining practices can result in a spike in cancer rates. Uranium extraction is quite common in Dera Ghazi Khan. Such mines are likely to be endangering the health of mine workers. Also, there are numerous dumping sites in Balochistan where nuclear waste is disposed of on a regular basis. A national cancer registry or cancer diagnostic centres around the country will help find out the actual number of cancer rates (spiked by such practices). For now, we can only hope that Imran Khan will consider establishing a cancer hospital in Quetta.

Waseel Mufti

Lahore