To mark the World Cancer Day, members of the Sambhavna Trust Clinic presented data on the alarming prevalence of cancer among the survivors of the Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal. The members expressed concern on the lack of facilities for the treatment of gas affected cancer patients and called for setting up of proper registration of cancers of the gas affected people.
“Our data shows that the prevalence of cancers among the people exposed to Union Carbide’s gases is eight times more than that of an unexposed population in Bhopal. Compared to an unexposed population, the prevalence of cancer is almost double in the population that has had exposure to groundwater contaminated by Union Carbide’s hazardous wastes. All of these findings are of diagnosed cancers and we have copies of the relevant medical records of each case.” said Farhat Jahan, community research worker at the clinic.
According to Mahendra Soni in-charge pathology laboratory, “Throat, lungs, oral, stomach and breast cancers are most common among the gas exposed people. We found that in the areas that were severely affected Ly the poisonous gases, twice as many people were dying of cancers compared to an unexposed population. Official data shows that till October last year, 8,551 gas victims with cancers have been paid ex-gratia amount by the Government.”
“While the number of gas victims with cancers is growing at an alarming rate, there are no facilities for treatment of cancer in the hospitals run for the gas victims by the state and central governments. The private and trust run cancer hospitals that gas victims are asked to go to have not been paid for the last one year by the Government and this is impacting the quality of care in a serious way. No action has been taken regarding provision of palliative care to gas affected cancer patients as recommended by the Monitoring Committee more than two years back,” said Aziza Sultan, gynecology assistant at the Clinic.
Commenting on the shoddy registration of gas affected cancer patients, Clinic’s community health worker Deepa Mandrai said, “There appears to be deliberate neglect in registering gas affected cancer patients by the Population Based Cancer Registry in Bhopal established by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in 1985. While the registry was specially established to record the effect of gas exposure on cancer prevalence, the registry does not collect information on history of exposure to Union Carbide’s gases of cancer patients.”