Ministry plans to put up four regional cancer treatment centres


Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia (centre) launches the National Cancer Management Guidelines at PanAfric Hotel in Nairobi Wednesday. [PHOTO: Moses Omusula/STANDARD]

By GATONYE GATHURA and RAWLINGS OTIENO

NAIROBI, KENYA: Four regional cancer treatment centres will be established at the Coast, Nyanza, Nyeri and Eldoret in a new strategy to fight the disease, which is now a major killer in the country.

A new guide for health workers in managing the disease released yesterday by Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia in Nairobi says already the cancer treatment centre at Kenyatta National Hospital was being upgraded.

The hospital, through the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency, has bought a new type of radiology machine called linear accelerator that is similar to ones installed at Aga Khan and MP Shah hospitals.

SPECIALISED WING

Kenyatta National Hospital will soon start building a specialised wing for the technology as per international requirements.

According to the 260-page document, the new facilities will be put up at Coast General Hospital, New Nyanza Provincial General Hospital, Nyeri Provincial General Hospital and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.

The immediate problem with these ambitions plans, said Macharia, was the lack of qualified personnel to man the proposed facilities.

“Currently there is a big shortage of human resource to manage cancer in the country,” he said.

The proposed establishments will require 125 cancer specialists broken down as follows: 15 radiation oncologists, 25 medical oncologists, 10 radiation therapy technologists, 50 oncology nurses, 10 medical physicists, eight nuclear medicine physicians, and 12 nuclear medicine technologists.

This, the document says, is an expensive undertaking because much of the training was not available locally and take from one to four years.

“This will require planning with a phased approach. The long-term goal will be to establish the training programmes locally,” said Macharia

The guidelines, which will soon be distributed to all health workers in the country, advises them against the habit of over ordering expensive tests, some which may not add value to patients. “Laboratory tests and imaging must be used judiciously and only if they will positively impact the overall management of the patient and enhance the patient’s quality of life, taking into account the cost,” the guide says.

The heath workers are also supposed to discuss with the patients all treatment plans, describing why and what is going to be done, the possible consequences and the expected outcome. And the treatment must be stopped once established that it is offering no help.

Before a treatment is offered, the patient should be told of possible negative effects and given options to make them more bearable.

For example, the document, mainly funded by the US, says some treatments can affect ones capacity to have children. In such a case, the patient can be advised on the possibility of banking their sperms or relocating the ovaries.

Most of cancer treatments being administered, the guide says, do not achieve much because the patients usually turn up in late stages when the disease is not curable. Health workers will have to disclose this information to such a patient.

Macharia said that cancer, together with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases, cause over 60 per cent of global mortality every year.

Existing data estimate that the annual incidence of cancer is close to 28,000 new cases with an annual mortality of over 22,000 making cancer the third leading cause of death after infectious diseases and cardiovascular conditions.