Divisional cancer hospitals now to have cardiac, kidney units

The project to set up 100-bed cancer hospitals in all eight divisional cities is undergoing a significant enhancement as cardiac and kidney facilities are being incorporated into these ongoing medical projects.

The number of beds in these hospitals will now be increased to 3,534 from the initial plan of 800 beds.

Dr SM Masud Alam, project director, Directorate General of Health Services, said the project was revised as per the prime minister's directive to provide kidney and cardiac patients with local access to treatment, reducing the need for them to travel to Dhaka.

Abdur Razzaque Sarker, a PhD research fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, told The Business Standard that decentralising cancer, kidney, and heart treatment outside Dhaka will lower patient costs, enhance care quality, promote early treatment, and reduce out-of-pocket expenses, reducing the need for borrowing or distress financing.

These facilities could be a lifeline for Inamul Haque, a 48-year-old motor worker from Tangail, who spends Tk25,000 each month for kidney dialysis at a private hospital in Dhaka twice a week.

Elated by the news that a dialysis facility would be in the new hospitals, his family expects much lower treatment costs.

The same goes for the family of 70-year-old Birendranath Roy from Nilphamari, who, even after a month-long wait, could not secure a chemotherapy appointment at the National Institute of Cancer Research Hospital. He is now planning to go to India for treatment.

Birendranath's son, Bakul, is now hopeful that the new hospital in their division would significantly improve his father's access to post-chemo treatments.

Project revision

The Health Services Division submitted a revised proposal to the Planning Commission on 4 October, indicating a 49.51% increase in the project cost, now totalling Tk3,571 crore.

Project Director Dr SM Masud Alam mentioned that cardiac and kidney units will be integrated into the same under-construction cancer hospitals, eliminating the need for new structures.

"Constructing additional structures will increase expenses. The total cost for the hospital building construction was Tk2,300 crore. With the revised plan, two components are added, but the building cost remains unchanged," he said.

As part of the project proposal, 15-storey buildings will be constructed in every divisional city except Dhaka.

A total of 450 beds will be available for cancer, kidney and cardiac patients in these hospitals.

There will be a two-floor basement on each hospital building with cancer treatment centres on 2nd-7th floors. The number of beds in the centre is 182.

On the 8th-11th floors, there will be a 156-bed nephrology and kidney centre with dialysis facilities. Besides, there will be a cardiac unit on the top three floors with 112 beds.

However, due to lack of space in Dhaka Division, 384 beds will be added to Kuwait-Bangladesh Friendship Hospital. As it is near Dhaka airport, the building will be of 12 floors instead of 15 floors.

All the construction is targeted to be completed by 2025.

Although the project went underway four years ago, the implementation of the project has been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, officials said.

Another reason for the delay was the requirement to construct a two-story bunker with 10-foot-thick walls for installing radiation machines, a task that involved significant work.

Besides, in order to include kidney and cardiac units, the buildings had to be redesigned.

So far the physical progress of this project is 20%, they said.

Dire need

In 2010, non-communicable diseases such as cancer, kidney issues, and heart diseases accounted for 59% of all deaths in Bangladesh which are now responsible for 70% of total deaths, according to the World Health Organisation.

A study says 26% of households in Bangladesh incur catastrophic health expenditure on hospitalisation for cancer, liver diseases and paralysis.

The findings of the study were published in the British Medical Journal in August last year, shedding light on rising out-of-pocket expenditure and a whopping 58% of the households facing distress financing on hospitalisation.

Health facilities in a nearby city will help families save time and cost of treatment of such critical patients.

According to Bangladesh Cancer Society, the estimated number of cancer patients in the country is between 13 lakh and 15 lakh.

Annually, Bangladesh records approximately 1.56 lakh new cancer cases, with 1.08 lakh patients succumbing to the disease, as per 2020 data from Globocan, an online database of global cancer statistics.

A staggering 90% of families with cancer patients face financial hardship to meet treatment expenses, according to a recent BIDS study.

In Bangladesh, approximately 2 crore people suffer from kidney disease, with 40,000 new cases of kidney failure each year. Around 75% of these patients lose their lives due to inadequate access to dialysis or kidney transplantation.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), kidney disease claimed 28,017 lives in 2020, a sharp increase from the previous year's 10,622 deaths.

In 2020, cardiac arrest was the leading cause of death in Bangladesh, responsible for 180,408 fatalities, constituting 21.1% of the country's total 8,54,253 deaths.

Project Director Dr SM Masud Alam explained that once the new hospitals in divisional cities are operational, they will significantly alleviate patient congestion in Dhaka, reducing both patient suffering and costs.

Currently, the National Heart Institute has five angiogram and angioplasty setups, but with the addition of eight hospitals, there will be 32 setups nationwide.

This expansion will ensure that people across the country have prompt access to emergency and routine healthcare services without lengthy waiting times, he added.