There is nothing quite as distressing as a child afflicted with a grave disease, like cancer. Certain types of cancer are so ruthless, so expensive to treat, that not every child is gifted with a “happy ending.” In the Philippines, where poverty is a continuing reality, the cost of fighting cancer is so high that children diagnosed with the disease are handed a virtual death sentence.
The chances of getting cancer increase greatly as one gets older, but the number of young Filipinos stricken appears to be quickly rising. World Cancer Day (Feb. 4) has come and gone, bearing the disturbing information that at the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC), the “fastest growing population” is made up of cancer patients.
According to Dr. Julius Lecciones, PCMC executive director and country coordinator for My Child Matters Philippines, the number of young cancer patients admitted yearly has risen by 30 percent, with some 506 children currently being treated. The United Nations’ International Agency for Research on Cancer has released a report saying that more than 200,000 children worldwide develop cancer each year, with the Philippines projected to have 3,500 new cases of cancer diagnosed in a year.
And of those cases, 70 percent will be detected only in the late stages when very little can be realistically done. Lecciones says the deadliest disease at the PCMC is the blood cancer leukemia, which accounts for the majority of childhood cancers and can usually be treated. Poor cancer patients are at higher risk because without financial assistance, “many of them will not survive,” he says.
Fortunately, the PCMC has My Child Matters, a program founded in 2006 to mobilize resources and improve young Filipino cancer patients’ access to care. Through the program’s public awareness campaign, the PCMC was able to reduce late diagnosis of cancer in children from 70 percent to 30 percent, Lecciones says, pointing out that “early diagnosis of cancer as well as rare blood disorders in children and young people saves lives.” My Child Matters and the PCMC’s available care have evolved to provide advanced and affordable treatments, even training oncologists and operating satellite centers in provincial hospitals.
It’s a noteworthy development because in the Philippines, there are few institutions devoted to helping young cancer patients. One such is Child Haus, founded by philanthropist Ricky Reyes, which specifically aims to meet a critical need: temporary lodging for underprivileged patients and their parents who travel to Metro Manila from their homes in the provinces to seek life-saving treatments.
The idea for Child Haus began years ago when Inquirer editor in chief Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc took Reyes to the Cancer Institute at the Philippine General Hospital to help female cancer patients. There, Reyes looked in on the young patients and noted how their families had to sleep in the hospital corridors or even the yard because they had no place to stay. From that experience emerged Child Haus, which has now expanded its purview to include education and has served over 9,000 patients through donations and the help of volunteers. When it was evicted from its Manila location in 2011, businessman Hans Sy donated a large house in Barangay Pinyahan, Quezon City, where Child Haus thrives
today. “The children, play, sing, dance and watch TV. They are happy here, such that they don’t feel they are sick,” Reyes says.
These generous undertakings are much appreciated but it is clear that more must be done, and soon, for the ailing children. The government can certainly do more to boost the private-sector initiatives in the form of a substantial budget allocation for the treatment and general assistance to cancer patients, as well as education campaigns and direct financial aid. As Lecciones says, “we need to increase the political priority given to cancer by demonstrating that the government’s investment in dealing with its growing cancer problem is an investment in the economic and social wellbeing of Filipinos.”
Beyond that, it’s time the Filipino public was apprised of the emerging childhood scourge, and of the great need for deep pockets, helping hands and caring hearts to save young lives.