4 of 5 Indian children do not survive cancer. What led to this sorry state?
How
long does a cancer
diagnosis
take?
Six
months, according to Bipin Jana, 45, whose eight-year-old son
Parmeshwar has stage-4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. That is how long it took
the family, travelling 2,000 km across West Bengal, New Delhi and
finally, Mumbai, to get an effective diagnosis and start treatment.
Parmeshwar
is currently undergoing chemotherapy at the Tata Memorial Hospital
(TMH), Mumbai, India’s foremost cancer treatment centre. Almost
half (43.6 per cent) of the children with cancer admitted here had to
travel over 1,300 km to reach the hospital, records showed. Up to 10
per cent travelled over 2,200 km and 20 per cent had undergone
alternative or incomplete treatments before reaching TMH.
With
timely diagnosis, children with cancer have a high rate of survival.
If he lived in a high-income country, Parmeshwar would have had a 90
per cent chance of recovery. Since he is being treated, his odds are
still better than India’s national survival rate for juvenile
cancers--less than 20 per cent, according to the World Health
Organization. Readmore
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