PETALING JAYA: The availability of chemotherapy in rural areas is a significant benefit for patients, providing both convenience and cost savings, says the National Cancer Society of Malaysia (NCSM).
The society’s managing director Dr Muralitharan Munisamy said that easier access to chemotherapy would allow rural patients to continue treatment close to home, while also easing congestion at major hospitals.
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“An essential part of cancer treatment in rural areas is ensuring there are no long waits for chemotherapy sessions at the country’s eight major centres,
“Another important thing is that having access to chemotherapy closer to their homes would reduce the out-of-pocket costs such as travel, accommodation and food,” he said when contacted.
Dr Muralitharan said the additional expenses were among the main reasons patients stopped receiving treatment.
He was commenting on the series of medium- and long-term initiatives to enhance cancer care services, particularly in rural areas, unveiled by the Health Ministry as part of the 12th and 13th Malaysia Plans (RMK12 and RMK13).
Dr Muralitharan also emphasised the current challenges faced by the ministry, namely the shortage of specialists in the country.
He said implementation of such services in rural areas involving oncology treatment would be challenging, seeing that 70% of oncologists are in the private sector.
“In reality, only some services can be extended to rural areas because many hospitals can only do so much due to the lack of necessary specialists
“Our human resources issues (in the public sector), especially in terms of specialists and their availability to work, such as rotation and so on, are going to be a challenge,” he added.
