Kin of kids with cancer write to MPs, seek childhood cancer plan

New Delhi: Families of thousands of kids with cancer have written to their respective parliamentarians of the country, requesting to raise the serious issue of health inequity for cancer kids in the Parliament session, and urge to formulate a National Plan and Policy for Childhood Cancer.
Across India, the campaign “Close the Care Gap” (Faasle Khatam Karo), kicked off on World Cancer Day on 4 February and will continue till International Childhood Cancer Day on 15 February. Currently, the campaign is running across 23 states which include 50 plus cities and over 70 cancer centres to acknowledge the thousands of children and their families who are dealing with a cancer diagnosis, raise awareness and advocate for better survival for children with cancer in India.
This initiative is taken by CanKids, an NGO with over 100 centres across the nation which gives complete financial support to kids with cancer whose families cannot afford the treatment. While discussing the care provided for cancer affected children, Ajay Kumar, an official who works with the NGO said: “We have flown a cancer affected child from Uttarpradesh to the Tata hospital in Mumbai just so that he could have timely and equal access to healthcare.”
Childhood cancer represents the starkest area of health inequity with survival rates of over 80% in high-income countries and as low as 20% in low-income countries like India. While children who make it to cancer centres can expect survival rates of 50% to 80% in the better hospitals in India, whereas, the 66% who don’t get diagnosed or are unable to make it to the treatment centre do not survive, leading to overall low survival rate. More than 75% of children with cancer in India do not survive. About 76,805 children have cancer each year out of which less than 34% reach a cancer hospital anywhere in the country. This had become a key factor for the overall survival rate in India, which is at less than 20%.
Poonam Bagai, Chairman Cankids, said, “We want to point out inequality. On World Cancer Day in India, rarely do we talk about childhood cancers. The cancers are the fourth highest cancer in our country, though the Government of India talks about other cancers, like the National programme for cancer, but there is no focus on child cancer, so this is an initiative to bring attention to the issue.”