Cancer Foundation lobbies Govt. for low-cost radiation treatment centre to assist patients

Oct 18, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – For cancer many low-income patients accessing radiation therapy in Guyana, can cost a fortune.

Founder of the Guyana Cancer Foundation, Ms Bibi Saeedah Aktar Hassan.

According to Founder of the Guyana Cancer Foundation (GCF), Ms Bibi Saeedah Aktar Hassan, the heavy cost associated with radiation therapy has seen many persons suffering in silence. She said “many patients bypass the treatment because they cannot afford it and eventually succumb to the disease.”

However, the GCF Founder said that the organisation is hoping to bring about a change in this regard. Along with its list of breast cancer awareness activities for October, Hassan said that GCF is also lobbying Government to support the establishment of a Low Income Radiation Therapy Centre to subsidise costs for cancer patients who struggle to afford the vital treatment.

She said “radiation therapy starts at $550,000 up. It can go up to $1.4 million for persons with cervical cancer. There is currently only one at the privately owned centre at the Guyana Cancer Institute.”

The GCF Head lamented: “There is need for one that can cater for our low income people because people can’t afford the price to pay for radiation therapy. Where will these poor people get the money to do radiation therapy?”

She explained that while the Government currently subsidises radiation treatment for cancer patients through the Guyana Cancer Institute but even with the subsidy, it’s still quite expensive. “Some person who can afford usually travel overseas to access the radiation treatment but that is not a viable option for many persons, those who can’t afford it get depressed and they come to my Organisation and I try my best to help them but sometimes I can’t because of the funding you have to get to help them with that money. Sometimes they can’t event raise $300,000 to go. The Government normally pays $200,000 and $200,000 can’t help. Even though it’s something it can’t help for the poor people that is why I have been advocating for this…” she added.

Radiation therapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses beams of intense energy to kill cancer cells. Radiation therapy most often uses X-rays, but protons or other types of energy also can be used.

The term ‘radiation therapy’ most often refers to external beam radiation therapy. During this type of radiation, the high-energy beams come from a machine outside of your body that aims the beams at a precise point on your body. During a different type of radiation treatment called brachy therapy, radiation is placed inside your body.

Radiation therapy damages cells by destroying the genetic material that controls how cells grow and divide. While both healthy and cancerous cells are damaged by radiation therapy, the goal of radiation therapy is to destroy as few normal, healthy cells as possible. Normal cells can often repair much of the damage caused by radiation. As such, the cost for this treatment is usually significantly more than other types of treatment.

The Founder also told Kaieteur News that over the past two years, the GCF has been focused on lobbying the Government and even some Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to implement better facilities to assist those affected by the disease.

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