In just under a month the family spent over Rs5 lakh to procure platelets for their only child who needed around three units on certain days.
The walls of the home where the Narayanans live at LIC colony in Mumbai’s SantaCruz area are adorned with hand-made decorative items. There is a miniature ship made of recycled material and bracelets made from rubberbands – items 14-year-old Anirudh Narayan learnt to make while recovering from cancer at the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) in Mumbai earlier this year.
Two months ago when Mumbai was reeling under acute shortage of blood platelets, Anirudh was fighting against Leukemia for the second time at a private hospital. “He had undergone bone marrow transplant and was recovering well but then contracted a fungal infection,” his father TB Narayanan, an LIC employee said.
In just under a month the family spent over Rs5 lakh to procure platelets for their only child who needed around three units on certain days.
“The cost would not have mattered had our son surived,” said Narayana. But despite their grief the family has chosen to focus on the larger picture. “We need more people to donate money to cancer patients and come forward to donate blood and platelets,” he continued. Cancer patients who have low immunity need platelets on a regular basis. While at government hospitals they are available free of cost, they are frequently out of stock. Private hospitals can charge anywhere from Rs4,000 to Rs6,000 per unit. The private hospital where Anirudh underwent a bone marrow transplant charged a whopping Rs25,000 for every unit.
“What is most important is counselling for parents. At Tata hospital the staff and the doctors were excellent. They were the ones who broke the news to Anirudh,” said Lata, Anirudh’s mother. She continued to describe how volunteers taught Anirudh to make handicraft from recycled products and how their son was happy during his stay there. “Everyone over there is very dedicated,” she said.
The couple moved to Mumbai from Varanasi a year ago for Anirudh’s treatment. While he got better at Tata, when the cancer returned, a bone marrow transplant was the only option. “The waiting list at Tata stretched to months so we went to a private hospital. However, not everyone can afford it,” stressed TB Narayanan. He believes that there is the need to expand government infrastructure so more patients receive care.
The family spent almost 40 lakh in the past year on treatment, most of which was spent in a month after their son was admitted to the private hospital. “The government needs to monitor costs at private hospitals.We were not allowed to bring food from outside or medicines,” he explained.
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