COMMENT | Cheaper cancer treatment, fewer deaths like my mum's
COMMENT | When Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin admitted the inequalities in the health system, particularly on cancer care services in rural areas, my heart sank; because ten years ago, I went through the same flawed public health system with my late mother.
It is estimated that there are 49,000 people who are newly diagnosed with cancer in 2020. In his media statement, Khairy said there are 128 oncologists in Malaysia.
That means the oncologist-patient ratio is at 1:382 new patients annually.
This number has yet to include the existing number of cancer patients. With only six cancer treatment centres under the Health Ministry, Khairy also revealed that there are only 36 oncologists in these centres. He was also on point when he said that cancer patients travel from the east coast to receive treatment in Kuala Lumpur.
About a decade ago...
COMMENT | When Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin admitted the inequalities in the health system, particularly on cancer care services in rural areas, my heart sank; because ten years ago, I went through the same flawed public health system with my late mother.
It is estimated that there are 49,000 people who are newly diagnosed with cancer in 2020. In his media statement, Khairy said there are 128 oncologists in Malaysia.
That means the oncologist-patient ratio is at 1:382 new patients annually.
This number has yet to include the existing number of cancer patients. With only six cancer treatment centres under the Health Ministry, Khairy also revealed that there are only 36 oncologists in these centres. He was also on point when he said that cancer patients travel from the east coast to receive treatment in Kuala Lumpur.
About a decade ago, my late mother was treated by a total of three different oncologists who came on a monthly rotational basis to the Tengku Ampuan Afzan Hospital in Kuantan, in the span of three years.
I vividly remember her anxiously waiting to be called for her radiotherapy treatment after two cycles of chemotherapy. One day, she received the long-awaited phone call and the hospital told her to admit herself at the National Cancer Institute in Putrajaya in two days.
That gives a frail, sunken and sickly old lady 48 hours to travel 300km for a treatment which may or may not lengthen her lifespan.
It has been some time since she passed on, and while I am immensely grateful to the government for providing cancer care treatment to my mother at a very affordable price; it is disheartening to learn that the healthcare system has not made strides in providing cancer treatment.
While the shortage of specialists is another issue on its own, access to new treatment methods is also limited for patients in the low-income bracket.
It is arguable that such facilities can be exorbitant and with Malaysia’s universal healthcare system, it would require billions to enable such access to all. However, there can be targeted therapies for the most common cancers like breast, nasopharyngeal and prostate cancer.
It is commonly known that breast cancer, if detected early, has the best prognosis. The Breast Cancer Foundation also revealed that one in 19 women in Malaysia is at risk, making breast cancer the most common form of cancer affecting women.
Much innovation has happened in the space of cancer treatment - where advances in medicine means that cancer treatments now are more effective, contain less side effects and result in better survivability/quality of life.
If targeted therapies for breast cancer can be introduced to suburban and rural hospitals in the country, the overall survival for cancer patients can be prolonged.
The European Society for Medical Oncology 2021 congress highlighted that targeted therapies for breast cancer such as ribociclib (CDK 4/6 inhibitor) showed a median overall survival of more than five years for metastatic breast cancer, which is one year more than hormone therapy treatment.
The treatment gap between the T20 and B40 is real. Cancer Research Malaysia reported that while high-income breast cancer patients in Malaysia have a survival rate of over 90 percent, low-income patients have a less than 65 percent chance of surviving the disease.
Inequality exists in every fabric of society and while our coffers may not be able to provide state-of-the-art treatment for all, there is potential to strategically plan, purchase and implement science-backed targeted therapies for the most common cancers to narrow the treatment gap.
CHRISTINE YP is a former journalist working on development programmes.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
