Support for blood cancer patients is thin. This needs to change – TimesLIVE

While South Africans recently observed Human Rights Day, the notion of basic human rights continues to be a global topic of contention, particularly as the World Health Organisation (WHO) asserts that health is a fundamental human right.

The organisations director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, expands on this notion well, explaining that enjoying the highest attainable standard of health is a fundamental right of every person.

In SA, the publics right to health is protected by Section 27a of the constitution, which declares that everyone has the right to access to healthcare services. While this is embedded in our rights as citizens, it is often our misinterpretations and the failures of providers that lead to the collapse of such rights.

The right to adequate healthcare is particularly relevant when addressing dread diseases such as cancer, where specialised medical interventions can prolong or save a life. Most notable is the need for interventions to address more pressing cancers, such as hematologic malignancies, or blood cancers. These are orphan diseases and are not nearly as common as the more predominant types, such as breast and prostate cancer.

All cancers require immediate intervention, but once blood cancer is detected in a patient, the clock starts ticking to seek appropriate treatment. While conventional intensive treatments such as chemotherapy have proven useful, they can only drive the disease into remission and patients have a high likelihood of relapse.

Treatments such as blood stem cell therapy have a high probability of eradicating the disease. However, there have been challenges to the procedure in SA.

The department of health promulgated the Medical Schemes Act 131 in 1998, which featured an annexure that defines what stem cell transplantation is and how patients would qualify. It also noted that the act would be reviewed and updated every two years. However, this has not happened.

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Support for blood cancer patients is thin. This needs to change - TimesLIVE