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Economic woes deter cancer patients from seeking treatment

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Dr Chew Lee Ping (top right), a consultant haematologist at Sarawak General Hospital (SGH), speaks in an interview session during the virtual launch of ‘Many Tomorrows’ as Dr Adibah Ali (bottom panel), a consultant breast and endocrine surgeon at SGH, looks on.

KUCHING: Sarawak faces numerous barriers when it comes to seeking cancer treatment and care, including economic circumstances, misinformation, and logistics.

Dr Chew Lee Ping, a consultant haematologist at Sarawak General Hospital (SGH), said the most prevalent barrier in seeking cancer treatment among her patients was their loss of income and that of their caretakers.

“Due to economic reasons, many are unable to turn up for appointment visits. Although things have improved in Sarawak compared to 10 years ago, whereby patients now can get a lot of supportive cancer care at the nearest clinic, there is still a need for economic support for patients to come for regular visits to the nearest hospital for chemotherapy.

“Many elderly patients do not want to be an economic burden to their children and many would tell us that they would rather die with cancer than come for treatment,” she said.

She said this in an interview session during the virtual launch of ‘Many Tomorrows’ – a new music video by sape artiste Alena Murang for World Cancer Day – on Zoom and Facebook live on Thursday (Feb 3).

She said another issue faced was misinformation on social media, explaining that many patients were overwhelmed with the diagnosis of cancer and would turn to the internet and be misled by scientific-sounding videos which promise them miracle treatments to cure cancer without any unpleasant side effects.

“This harmful misinformation will delay early treatment. In cancer care, the earlier you treat, the better the outcome.

“So this is where cancer groups like Society for Cancer Advocacy and Awareness (SCAN) Kuching will be helpful for new cancer patients to speak to or listen from, so that they get the right message through, and hopefully the patients themselves will get the right treatment and hopefully a more successful outcome,” said Dr Chew.

Meanwhile, Dr Adibah Ali, a consultant breast and endocrine surgeon at SGH, said that in Sarawak, about 20 to 30 per cent of breast cancer patients presented at Stage 4 of cancer while only about 10 per cent presented early on at Stage 1.

She said this was the inverse of developed countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America, where about 40 per cent would usually present with early stage cancer while about 10 per cent would present at Stage 4.

“There are a lot of factors which cause this gap in statistics between ourselves and developed countries. In Sarawak, there have always been a lot of barriers including logistics and distance from hospitals.

“Patients have a lack of knowledge and awareness and they may be in denial too. Other factors are financial constraints and a preference to seek alternative medicine,” she said.

She said the World Cancer Day 2022 theme ‘Close the Care Gap’ was meaningful and suited Sarawak’s situation.

“We have a wide gap of care from the initial part of diagnosis until receiving treatment. Looking at our logistics, it is not easy for us to do much, but at least if we can have a good screening programme and an adequate number of primary care facilities, we could reach patients in the rural areas for early cancer detection, which can improve the outcome,” said Dr Adibah. 

With cancer care getting more expensive, Dr Chew also hoped that Malaysia would gain access to more generic drugs which would be more affordable so that more patients could benefit from treatment. 

“I also hope that Malaysia will get included in many more international clinical trials on cancer drugs so that our patients – if they relapse despite treatment – can have early access to state-of-art treatment for a better outcome. This is my hope to close the gap,” she said.

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