Cancer patients are particularly vulnerable to infection, and are at a higher risk of becoming severely ill if infected with COVID-19. As the coronavirus pandemic spread across Pakistan, Shaukat Khanum, as a responsible organisation, took immediate steps to safeguard its cancer patients and to minimise their risk of infection. We quickly implemented a number of strategies to help minimize this risk, prioritising the safety and continuity of care of cancer patients who were already in the system, while also contributing to the national effort against coronavirus in this time of crisis. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment of all cancer patients already in the system continued as planned. Elective surgery was deferred for a short while, but has now re-commenced. The intake of new cancer patients was temporarily delayed so that the Hospital could prepare itself for a possible influx of cancer patients infected with coronavirus. This involved converting two of our four inpatient units to an expanded intensive care unit (ICU), complete with 35 ventilated beds, as well as creation of a dedicated corona ward. This additional capacity means that we can now look after not only our own registered cancer patients but also other coronavirus patients who might need state-of-the-art treatment facilities, irrespective of their ability to pay.
Nevertheless, keeping in view the need of cancer patients in the country, the Hospital has resumed intake of new cancer patients from this week, starting from the most common tumour that we see, which is breast cancer, and also Hodgkin’s lymphoma. We continue to monitor the situation and the number of patients infected with the coronavirus very carefully, and hope to quickly resume the intake of patients with other malignancies over the next few weeks, so as to ensure that we are able to accept as many patients for cancer treatment as we would have had there been no interruption to services.
We ask that our friends, supporters and donors help us, as they always have, in our battle not on one, but on two fronts – cancer and the coronavirus.
