Making cancer care affordable ………Ketan Tanna I TNN
Mumbai: Chemotherapy for cancer patients is, by any standards, a costly affair. A session in a good hospital can set the patient back by Rs 2,500 to Rs 4,500. Throw in the various tests and medicines and a sixmonth budget can easily cross the Rs 2,00,000 mark.
But there is hope for those who dont have that kind of money. At Dalvi Hospital in Babulnath, a chemotherapy session does not exceed Rs 750. And soon, expensive cancer drugs at the hospital pharmacy will be available at 30 to 40 per cent less than the MRP rate.
The man behind this mission of making cancer treatment affordable to poor and lower-middle-class patients is Dr Kaushik Damania, a 69-year-old oncologist who put in over 30 years at US hospitals before a heart problem brought him back to India in 1998. Since then, he has treated over 500 cancer patients at nominal rates. Cancer treatment and cancer drugs have been a profit-making industry for many doctors and drug companies, he says. But the fact is they can be available for much less.
For over two years, Dr Damania worked at the Sir Kikabhai Premchand Centre, a charity trust in Matunga, where he provided chemotherapy at a marginal price. However, in May 2008, he had to wind up because of a lack of patients. Despite advertising and word-of-mouth publicity, we got very few patients, and the cost of running the Centre soon became unviable, Dr Damania says.
There were multiple reasons for this. I know it is not kosher to say this, he says. But in Mumbai, doctors dont refer patients if they dont get their cut. Besides, having been in the US for so long, I knew very few doctors. But the third and most important reason is that when treatment is practically free, which it was to an extent at the Sir Kikabhai Premchand Centre, patients tend to lose faith; they probably think its inferior in some way.
But the doctor did not give up. For the last two months or so, he has been offering his chemotherapy services at Dalvi Hospital. I work for free though the hospital may charge a very nominal fee, as it has to keep going, Dr Damania says.
For now, Dr Damania is trying to get the pharmacy at the hospital to reduce the costs of cancer drugs. There are two pharmacies in Mumbai which are offering cancer drugs at 40 per cent less than MRP, he says. When I pointed this out to the pharmacy, they promised to match those prices.
Good news for cancer patients certainly. As for the future, Dr Damania says he will continue working for society as long as his health permits.
Dr Kaushik Damania can be contacted on 9820094728.
MAN ON A MISSION: Dr Kaushik Damania is trying to make cancer drugs available in Dalvi Hospital at rates lesser than the MRP