Almost six crore people go below the poverty line (BPL) because of cancer treatment every year in India, Mumbai-based Tata Memorial Centre told a Parliamentary Standing Committee recently.
Tata Memorial Centre said the fatal disease is causing a huge economic burden on patients, particularly from those from the north-eastern States as they have to travel for two-three days by trains to Mumbai for better treatment.
Painting a gloomy picture on the status of the cancer healthcare facilities in the country, Tata Memorial Centre informed the panel that “the current infrastructure is grossly inadequate to handle this issue (cancer treatment) and, even by Ayushman Bharat records, which we have looked at over the last one year, two-thirds of the cancer care is actually provided in the private sector with the result that almost every year, six crore of India’s population go below the poverty line because of the catastrophic healthcare related expenditure on cancer.”
The panel headed by Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh recently submitted the report.
The report has quoted statements of Tata Memorial Centre, one of the eleven institutions in the country aided by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) under the Union Science and Technology Ministry. It is engaged in the research and treatment of the cancer in the country.
The Tata Memorial Centre submission reveals how patients are being made to suffer financially, physically and mentally because the lack of access to critical health care centres across the country.
The leading cancer care centre in the country had geo-tagged 75,000 cancer patients who had visited the institute from across India during six months and found that the density is “extremely high” in the North-East followed by north and east.
“The time taken by a patient in travel from Arunachal Pradesh to Mumbai is two to three days. This puts a lot of economic burden on the patient because usually the patient comes with a family member,” it said
As per the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s GLOBOCAN project, it is expected that the burden of cancer in India will increase from an estimated incidence of 1.3 million cases in 2018 to about 1.7 million in 2035.
Concerned at the overall rising number of cancer cases, the panel has now suggested the Centre to replicate the “Hub and Spoke” model for cancer treatment across the country wherein centres will be set up at the State and district level to tackle the disease.