THE health authorities are not averse to a partnership with the private sector to establish a cancer treatment centre which would provide the kind of care designed to avoid the expense of dealing with the deadly disease.

“Globally, cancer treatment is a very, very expensive procedure and it requires collaborative effort,” said Tanny Shirley, chairman of the South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA).

“I am not sure that it is something any single entity can manage effectively without costs associated to it. It is a major challenge, and will remain until we can look at collaborate efforts whether through private sector entities or other Caricom countries to see if we could set up a national cancer centre,” Shirley added.

“We need to look at a comprehensive cancer centre that deals with prevention, diagnosis and treatment, and in most cases prevention, because we just won’t be able to afford cancer treatment at the level to make patients satisfied so the attention has to be put on prevention,” the SERHA chairman said.

Shirley made the comment against the background of an Observer report last Friday highlighting the effects the breakdown of the cobalt unit at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) was having on cancer patients.

Initially the health authorities had said 55 patients were affected by the malfunction. However, the Observer later learnt that it is actually 400 patients who have now been made to wait for radiotherapy.

“It’s not unlikely in some areas that cancer patients could run a treatment bill as much as US$1 million, so it is something that while the waiting list is there it is a major challenge,” said Shirley.

“We have an old cobalt unit that has been doing very well. Unfortunately, it is aged and requires upgrading, which we are doing,” he added and appealed for patience.

“We need to be understanding of the nature of cancer. It is a global problem, it is increasing rapidly — especially in Jamaica — so we are not only going to be faced with those waiting lists but also how it is growing, and it is an area in which grave attention needs to be given and the ministry is quite aware,” he said.

“In terms of public-private partnership, we are not ruling that out; our patients, we are asking them to be patient with us. The unit will be back in order. There are a lot of intricacies in just transporting it. It’s a complicated system and there is a lot of work to be put in.

However, for one patient at the KPH, who was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, those interventions cannot come quickly enough.

“I did chemotherapy and radiation and all of that, but it’s like it come back now and it’s near the optic nerve, so I should have done radiotherapy from December 16th, but they said the machine broke down from the Monday of the same week and I keep calling and they say it’s still not up as yet,” she told the Observer last Friday.

“I should have finished a long time ago because it’s only two weeks worth of it I should have done. I keep asking and they say they don’t know when and that won’t do me any good. I’m not feeling any worse, thank God, and I am not really having any pain right now; but I don’t want it to stay there and get worse. I just need for them to tell me what’s happening and when,” she said, lamenting that the level of communication is “very poor”.

“They should call people and let people know what’s happening. Maybe I am good enough to be calling all the time, but what about persons who can’t?” she asked.

A 2007 Health Sector Task Force commissioned by Rudyard Spencer, the former health minister under the previous Jamaica Labour Party Government, and chaired by Dr Winston Davidson had found that the “the public sector continues to use outdated cobalt radiotherapy units at the Kingston Public Hospital and Cornwall Regional Hospital”.