The financial implications of cancer treatment very often over-shadows all other aspects of it. This becomes more of an impediment to availing cancer treatment if the patient is remotely located and does not have any cancer speciality hospital within the same village or town. Travel and stay expenses add on to other costs like consultation, diagnostics, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation etc, making the situation far more burdensome.
The problem of limited resources
This was exactly the situation faced by a head and neck cancer patient residing in Nasirabad, a Nagar panchayat in Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh. The local government hospital does not have an oncologist on board and referred the patient to a private hospital. With no insurance to claim, and limited resources, the patient was reluctant to even visit the private hospital.
Fortunately, the patient’s family visited the local Community Health Centre to seek an opinion on this matter. The doctor there, Dr S M Abbas, knew about the services of Onco.com and contacted one of our care managers to find a solution to this problem. The care manager immediately got into action, requesting for the patient’s reports and looking for a hospital in the vicinity that could help them with their specific type and stage of cancer.
The patient’s family confided in the care manager that they would not be able to afford treatment at any of the speciality hospitals nearby. So the care manager began to look for economical cancer services that would be accessible to them in the present situation where travel is still restricted in many parts of our country.
An affordable cancer care solution is found
The solution presented itself after a persistent search by the care manager. A cancer clinic in Kanpur would be able to provide low-cost cancer care to this patient. An appointment was fixed over just a phone call. The patient and her family decided to immediately begin treatment at that same clinic.
On 14th July, the patient began her first round of chemotherapy at the said clinic. The news of the affordability and services of this clinic caused many other cancer patients from the surrounding villages to show interest in seeking treatment, consultation and second opinions here.
To be able to find the right course of treatment, an experienced oncologist, and affordable medical facilities within a short span of time, during this pandemic, seems like a miracle to this cancer patient and her family. But at Onco.com, we know that such miracles occur daily, with the use of the right information and networking. Cancer does not wait for the pandemic to end, and neither should cancer care.
