Timely diagnosis of breast cancer

Doctors at the Civil Hospital Karachi on World Breast Cancer Day 2024  (file photo) 

Ahead of World Health Day, April 7, there is good news from Karachi about curative side of women health. A breast cancer radiotherapy facility is expected to go operational at the Karachi’s major public sector hospital, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, with the support of NGO Edhi Foundation, in a year’s time. Execution of such a plan would certainly be a significant development, given the facts that every year thousands of women, aged 19 to 70 years, are diagnosed with breast cancer, a leading cause of death among them. 

Though there is dearth of data related to the cancer diseases, like many other diseases and epidemics, in the country, physicians and surgeons concerned have been complaining about the considerably late or slow diagnosis of women breast cancer, as well as delayed curative or management interventions, medical or surgical. Almost half of the cancer victim women are diagnosed as stage-4 patients –hard to be cured and survive—courtesy inadequate public health initiatives.

It is viewed that the stage 4 patients happen to be beyond surgical or chemo interventions and are largely left to receive their oral therapies at home and at hospitals, undergoing physical and emotional burden as well, in addition to a significant financial challenge faced by their families.

Going with the thumb rule that prevention first, there is a need for launching awareness campaigns focusing on regular screening and self-examination both in the urban and rural settings. Comparatively, rural women deserve increased counselling at taluka level hospitals across Sindh and the country.

According to reports, over seven years back, the Sindh Health Department had been unable to utilise seven or so freely provided used mobile breast cancer screening units from Scotland for women as those were dumped for some other purposes. As per a senior health administrative officer of that time, the units in question were useless in Pakistan due to local cultural and religious values. Similarly, another about half a dozen mobile breast cancer units were developed under the Sindh government’s special initiatives at an exorbitant cost, which were finally handed to the Sindh Relief Department, however, any report or data about their utilisation or number of deserving women benefitted are yet to be known. 

In addition, while population is facing the spread of non-communicable diseases and dying of, a lot of funds and energies are being spent on bacterial and viral epidemics, which have otherwise been controlled or being managed considerably in many other countries. Polio, measles, HIV and hepatitis are a few to be named. Confirmations about morbidity rates have been exposing the claims made by health authorities, their strategies for prevention and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases across the country.

In Sindh too, things are not all well in the context of its health management, public health engineering and sanitation establishments, who glaringly have been unable to get rid of polio, malaria, dengue, chikungunya, naegleria, viral hepatitis, Congo fever, HIV/Aids and tuberculosis incidences. The province has helplessly got big numbers of deaths, due to lower respiratory infection, ischemic heart disease, diarrheal disease, perinatal conditions, cerebro-vascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, renal disease, measles, whopping cough, congenital anomalies and diabetes.

Overall, one may not be contradicted in saying the solutions lie, besides the much-awaited role of preventive measures, in early disease warning system or any reliable or effective health management information system, with a real-time dissemination of data and guidelines. Sadly, there is a trend of burying the data and facts in files and personal computers of the quarters at the helm of affairs or making decisions sans evidences.

Governments in the provinces which are never tired of handing plethora of pledges toward health sector facilities to the masses, may rightly be expected to give care also to the much acclaimed aspect that diseases remained undiagnosed for long duration due to the apathy of doctors, patients or relevant authorities.

Editorial/Social Track, Karachi.