Cancer and treatments

Mar 25, 2019 Editorial

It is good to hear of the successful treatment of President Granger. All Guyanese should breathe a sigh of relief and give a word of thanks.
No politics with serious sickness is a sign of maturity and humanity. There should be no sickness that comes along and passes by with the usual grinding, clashing divisions, which brings out a side that is best left buried. And, there ought to be no sickness for which treatments are out of reach.
The President has the advantages of office; they were timely and handy at the most urgent of moments. Good! Quite a few ways less well-positioned citizens are not so advantaged.
Cancer is a prime example in Guyana. It is a scourge of mean proportions: seemingly, no part of the anatomy is out of reach of hostile, toxic tentacles: from brain to breast to bowel, it is same frightening story.
Numbingly, Guyanese learn the peculiar new language of carcinogens, metastasis, chemo cocktails, radiation, and hopefully remission.
Wretched patients learn of stages, and the higher the number, the greater the probability of that one final fateful fall. And both frightened patients and bewildered families learn of one more stage, a series of them actually. That would be the financial stages of the treatment regimes associated with a chance of curing the arrival of this plague on so many Guyanese houses.
The finances are not there; nor is there a far-flung network of facilities to address and combat what is still a largely statistically unrecognized health problem. Maybe even a grave health situation, all told.
Nor is there that body of oncology specialists for patient leaning, confidence building, and disease fighting. For learning and sharing and expanding a pool of knowledge, too.
There are a handful of dedicated professionals, who labour quietly and thanklessly. The odds are not favourable. Part of the problem is that those not equipped to deal with this particular disease do get adventurous at the expense of sick, weak, fearful victims.
Treatment options are limited; treatment related finances powerfully prohibitive to those lacking anywhere near the means. This is the grimmest of developments in a thoroughly grim set of circumstances. Potential remedies may be there, but they just as well might not be, they are so far out of reach.
Tests alone can run into the tens of thousands; a cycle of half a dozen chemotherapy treatments several hundred thousand and counting on an escalating scale; and an effective radiation program usually involves dozens of visits, which add up in the six-figure column. It can be overwhelming for most, even with helping local hands and generous overseas-based relations.
For its part, the government, through the Ministry of Public Health, has made some funds available to ease the financial burden. This is helpful, but not nearly enough. As mentioned earlier, this is one expensive illness. There are more than a few domestic and foreign agencies that devote heart and soul to alleviate the plight of the suffering. Still more is needed, and urgently, too.
While progress has been made, there has to be a higher priority and sharper focus on what can no longer be characterized as a run of the mill sickness. Too many are dying. Too many are consigned to the harrowing circumstance of a prolonged decline with only four bare walls for company.
The well-heeled can pursue an array of options beyond the borders. The less blessed are reduced to ordeal by fire. In silence. In agony. In secret. That is, except for the neighbours who can hear and the families that must swallow hard and bear more.
A structure, more state financing, and a concerted comprehensive approach would be most helpful; more and insistent publicity is demanded. And not only on the nature of the disease, but its frequency; and its creeping scything arc far and wide across an unknowing society. Call and action must come. Now.