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DEATH OF CANCER PATIENTS IMMINENT
*As treatment machines collapse nationwide
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housands of cancer patients are
currently facing death nationwide, following a breakdown of all the
radiotherapy machines at treatment centres in the country.
Igboi-hospital The
development, which has persisted for years, has become unmanageable in the last
few weeks as a result of alarm raised by patients and their relatives who
throng the centres daily.
Report said that the cancer machines at the
National Hospital Abuja, NHA, Lagos University Teaching Hospitals, LUTH,
University College Hospital, UCH, Ibadan, including others in health
institutions in Gombe, Enugu, Benin, Sokoto among others, have been breaking
down frequently due to wear and tear and lack of maintenance.
Findings revealed
that managements of the affected hospitals are complaining of lack of money to
buy forex and bring foreign experts to fix the machines. For all the people,
who have oncology problem today in the country, they may have to wait for a
long time for their treatment to continue
For all the people, who have
oncology problem today in the country, they may have to wait for a long time
for their treatment to continue.
An oncology expert said a radiotherapy machine
was the device commonly used for external beam radiation treatments for
patients with cancer, adding that it was better for an oncology patient not to
get radiation treatment than to get half dose or incomplete dosage.
He said:
“If somebody is getting a radiation treatment and breaks, the cells will now
build immunity and bounce back.” At the NHA, it was gathered that the new
Lineal Accelerator Machine procured in 2014 is still intact in the crate and
there are fears that they may have gone bad under the condition they are kept.
Some of the patients who were in Abuja and LUTH said they had been turned back
at three other tertiary hospitals where the cancer treatment machines had
broken down.
Lamenting the excruciating pains they were going through, the
patients feared they might not survive the ordeal as they could no longer
tolerate the pain.
A patient at NHA disclosed to our reporter that his family
was making plans to fly him to India for further treatment. The patient said:
“I may have to travel to India, where I can continue with the treatment. I was
diagnosed in Sokoto State, but I was referred to Gombe State for radiotherapy
sessions when the one in the state stopped working. “I got to Gombe but their
machine had broken down too. Read more
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