Syrian refugees are denied cancer and other critical health treatment due to lack of funding, senior medical expert with the United Nations warned.
A research team led by Dr Paul Spiegel examined the funding applications made to the UNHCR Exceptional Care Committee (ECC). The ECC evaluated 1,989 applications from refugees in Jordan for treatment between 2010 and 2012. Nearly a quarter (511) of the applicants suffered cancer with breast and colorectal cancer the most common, reports BBC. Around half of the cases were approved and funded.
In Jordon only 246 out of 511 refugee applications for cancer treatments between 2010-2012 were accepted. This was mainly due to rising costs with the average cancer treatment coming to approximately $21,000 per person.
The team found that the applications were rejected if the patient had a poor prognosis or the treatment was too costly. Furthermore, it was also found that the highest amounts approved in individual cases were $4,626 in 2011 and $3,501 in 2012.
"We (aid workers) can treat (refugees) with measles, but we can't treat everyone with cancer. Many doctors must decide who receives such critical care, and who does not. "We have to turn away cancer patients with poor prognoses because caring for them is too expensive. After losing everything at home, cancer patients face even greater suffering abroad -- often at a huge emotional and financial cost to their families," Spiegel said.
"We face a terrible decision over who to help," said UNHCR doctor Adam Musa Khalifa.
More than 3 million Syrians have immigrated to neighboring countries in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and even Egypt. Most of the countries face severe financial problems to provide for their own populations in addition to the growing refugee diasporas.
Spiegel advised that "innovative financing schemes" would be helpful to tackle the problem. "It could range from a fund that individuals and organisations could donate into, to health insurance or social schemes that exist for nationals in the host country," he told Agence France-Presse.
