CG’s cancer care crisis deepens Patients suffer as Regional Cancer Centre struggles with manpower, infrastructure gaps

 

 

 

 

Even as the Chhattisgarh Department of Health and Family Welfare claims to be strengthening cancer treatment facilities in the public healthcare system, patients continue to suffer due to delays, unpredictability and infrastructural shortcomings. At the only government-run Regional Cancer Centre of Chhattisgarh, located near Pt.

 

Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Medical College, Raipur, cancer patients from across State face serious difficulties in receiving timely treatment because of inadequate manpower and limited facilities. The Regional Cancer Centre is the sole government referral unit for cancer treatment in Chhattisgarh, with nearly 1,000 patients visiting its OPD every day. Around 100 patients undergo chemotherapy and about 45 undergo dialysis daily.

 

With such a large inflow of patients, especially from remote rural districts, the available facilities at the centre remain in a deplorable state, and much work is needed to upgrade its infrastructure. Notably, the centre lacks advanced treatment facilities such as a Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) unit.

 

This compels patients from across the state to seek treatment either in private hospitals or in government institutions in other states, including Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, AIIMS Nagpur, and AIIMS Delhi. After breast and lung cancer, blood cancer accounts for a major share of cancer cases in Chhattisgarh, and for more than 90% of these cases, a bone marrow transplant remains the only potential cure.

 

In the past month alone, at least 14 blood cancer patients and their caretakers at the Regional Cancer Centre have been referred to private hospitals or to AIIMS Nagpur and AIIMS Delhi. Due to the absence of a BMT facility even at AIIMS Raipur, patients are left with no alternative but to travel long distances for critical procedures. “We were advised by the oncologists here to visit private institutions where a transplant costs between 15 to 30 lakh rupees. In such cases, even the Ayushman Bharat scheme offers no real relief.

 

I cannot afford to take my ailing 26-year-old sister, who has stage III leukemia, all the way to Nagpur,” said Rambhushan Sahu, a resident of Dhamtari district. Due to a shortage of beds, many patients and their attendants are forced to sleep on the floor. Sources at the centre also confirm a shortage of several essential drugs, compelling patients to buy medications from private pharmacies.

 

Dr. Vivek Choudhari, Oncologist and Regional Head of the centre, informed that the state government has released 41.2 crore rupees to upgrade infrastructure, which he hopes will help launch several new cancer treatment facilities in the coming months. In this regard, Dr. Abhijeet Banerjee, Deputy Director and In-charge of the Cancer Section in Chhattisgarh Health Services, stated that funds have already been released for hospital upgrades. However, given the overwhelming number of patients, whether these improvements will be sufficient remains an open question.