Families of cancer patients in Bangladesh are in distress as they on average have to spend Tk 547,840 out of pocket (OOP) money for treatment of the prevalent fatal disease.
The average annual OOP cost of cancer is Tk 547,840 with minimum Tk 81,000 and maximum 2.5 million, according to the findings in a latest research by Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS). Findings of the study were unveiled Thursday.
It was conducted on households' perspective in Bangladesh where as many as 90-percent households surveyed faced distress financing due to huge cancer-treatment cost.
The study report says the OOP costs of drugs and diagnosis are accounting for the highest share of OOP cost.
Titled 'Out-of-pocket cost of cancer among Bangladeshi households: A field study', the study paper was presented by Kazi Iqbal, Senior Research Fellow, BIDS. Director-General of the state-run research body Binayak Sen chaired the event.
Experts and researchers explained the findings in the conclusion-day session of a two-day BIDS Research ALMANAC 2023 in a city hotel.
"The cost burden is greater for poorer households," says the study report.
It recommends that hospitals should fulfill all the necessary diagnostic facilities and promote early detection of cancer as the OOP is Tk 331,243 if cancer diagnosis at the first stage and almost Tk 700,000 if the cancer diagnosis at the 4th stage, according to the study paper presented at the event.
More expensive treatment drugs should be produced by state-owned pharmaceuticals to reduce their cost. "The government can invest an additional budget to safeguard patients from financial catastrophic shock."
Cancer treatment should be brought under an insurance mechanism to make it more affordable. There is a need for policies to impart financial protection and expand the screening and curative services for cancer, says the study.
The study emphasizes a national cancer-control policy as the financial burden of cancer is also massive.
The ever-increasing number of patients and the complications of the disease have imposed significant direct medical and indirect costs on patients, the health system and the government.
The costs vary with the age of the patient, types of cancer, the severity of the disease, length of stay in the hospital, length of stay in the ICU, and other various factors.
However, there are very few studies on households' economic burden of cancer in the context of Bangladesh.
The researcher randomly selected three hospitals in Dhaka and 450 confirmed cancer patients for the study. Some 72 per cent of the patients in the study samples were still cancer patients, 9 per cent died of cancer, 19 recovered from cancer.
Public hospitals play a major role in providing treatment for a relatively large population as the treatment cost in public hospitals is relatively lower, the study found.
Of the total patients admitted to the National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital (NICRH) in 2020, 34 per cent were from Dhaka and 22 per cent from Chattogram. The incidence of cancer rises dramatically with age.
Cancer is one of the devastating public-health problems in Bangladesh. There are about 1.5 million cancer patients in Bangladesh, with about 0.2 million patients newly diagnosed with cancer in each year, the study highlighted.
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