Cancer, diabetes and obesity - these three diseases are increasing rapidly in India.
Cancer, diabetes and obesity - these three diseases are increasing rapidly in India. Although all three are hereditary, their rapid spread in the present era is also linked to the disorders in our lifestyle, pollution of air and water and lack of affordable but better health facilities. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) says that among the three dangerous diseases, the number of deaths due to cancer is the highest every day. The number of cancer patients is also increasing by an average of 1.4 million every year.
One of the reasons for this increase is the increasing amount of cancer-causing elements in our air and food, while the lack of proper treatment facilities is also a major obstacle in the way of identifying this deadly disease at its early stages. There are currently 2100 medical oncologists, 3500 radiation oncologists and about 4000 oncology surgeons in the country. The services of all these three types of doctors are required by every cancer hospital from the initial identification of cancer to the completion of treatment. The above number is very low in proportion to the number of patients. In a country with more than 32 lakh cancer patients undergoing treatment, such a huge shortage of treating doctors is the main reason why patients (or potential patients) are not treated on time.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) claims that the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJY) has made this situation even more complicated by its clause that the government will pay for the treatment of a patient under this scheme only if the hospital treating him has a cancer specialist with a super specialty degree. This clause is not correct. Policies made by the bureaucracy without a sincere assessment of the real situation are also proving to be a threat to the lives of cancer patients. There are more than two hundred types of cancer at present. Government statistics about these present a frightening picture. It shows that every eight minutes a woman suffering from uterine or cervical cancer is dying in our country.
One in every two Indian women dies of breast cancer. Every day, 2,500 Indians die of oral cancer caused by tobacco use. The fact that at least one in every five men who smoke is dying from this habit is not a new trend. The number of deaths due to smoking in 2024 was 9.30 lakh. Although the treatment facilities for various types of cancers are much better now than ten years ago, the continuous increase in the number of patients has not allowed the burden on government health facilities to decrease. It is a good thing that due to continuous research on the methods of identification and treatment of various types of cancer, new drugs are also being developed year after year and the treatment methods are also becoming easier, yet the number of patients and the cases of relapse (return of cancer some time after the completion of treatment) are not decreasing is a worrying phenomenon.
Similarly, keeping the prices of effective and efficient medicines very high or producing packs with high doses of the drug by national/international companies that manufacture medicines and vaccines are symbols of the tendency to make huge profits instead of discovering medicines. The absence of serious efforts to control such a tendency is not only in our country but is even greater in wealthy countries than ours. In this context, the campaign launched by media platforms against the American (multinational) company that manufactures the medicine named 'Keytruda' is worth mentioning.
This campaign exposes the company's attempts to maximize profits until the patent of this drug expires. Treatment of various cancers should be as cheap as possible. Government regulations are necessary to achieve this objective. But such regulations should be based on ground realities, not on false claims. Similarly, medicines, especially life-saving medicines, should be made accessible to ordinary patients; they should not be limited to saving the lives of the rich as they are now.
