Delayed care, rising costs deepen BD’s cancer crisis

Thousands of cancer patients in Bangladesh are being pushed into a dangerous gap between diagnosis and treatment as specialised care remains concentrated in major cities and a long-delayed project to expand services across the country is still unfinished.

Bangladesh is facing a growing cancer burden, with around 167,000 new cases detected every year and more than 100,000 deaths, according to government data.

Health Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Husain recently told Parliament that nearly 316,000 people are currently living with cancer in the country. Breast and cervical cancers are most common among women, while lung and oral cancers are more prevalent among men.

Yet access to treatment remains slow, expensive and heavily centralised. For many patients outside Dhaka, the journey to care means long travel, long waiting times and heavy out-of-pocket spending.

A major government project launched in October 2019 to establish 100-bed cancer units in eight divisional cities was meant to reduce that pressure. But the project, originally scheduled to be completed by 2022, is still unfinished.

Seven years after its launch, a report by the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division said physical work is around 81 percent complete. However, key components such as equipment procurement and manpower recruitment have not yet begun.

The delay has also increased the financial burden on the state. Bureaucratic complications, four changes in project leadership and disputes over site selection have pushed the project cost up by 50 percent to Tk 3,433 crore.

For patients, the impact is more immediate and often devastating.
“Delayed access and high costs remain major challenges for patients in Bangladesh. Many poor patients have to wait months for treatment at public hospitals, while private care is often beyond the reach of middle- and lower-income families,” said journalist Mehedi Hassan, who is undergoing cancer treatment.

The crisis is sharpened by Bangladesh’s healthcare financing reality. Nearly three-quarters of medical expenses are paid directly by patients and their families, leaving many households vulnerable to debt, asset sales and financial ruin after a cancer diagnosis.

Experts say infrastructure alone will not solve the crisis. They argue that early detection, public awareness, primary healthcare screening and preventive measures must receive urgent attention.

SM Ziauddin Hyder, special assistant to the Prime Minister, said awareness and early detection remain among the strongest tools in fighting cancer.

The World Health Organization has warned that global cancer cases could nearly double by 2050, making early preparation crucial for countries like Bangladesh.

While the government now aims to complete the divisional cancer-care project by 2026, experts say the immediate priority should be strengthening primary healthcare, expanding screening programmes and ensuring nationwide HPV vaccination to help prevent cervical cancer among future generations.

Until regional cancer facilities become fully functional, thousands of patients will continue to face an uncertain and costly journey from diagnosis to treatment – a journey where delay itself can become deadly.