Disruption of cancer care during Covid pandemic-A time for reflection
It’s coming to two years since the start of the global pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. (Popularly known as Covid-19) which affected all of our lives in many ways than one. Although we are in a better position than before thanks to the triumph of science in producing multiple effective vaccines and the latest variant proving less damaging we are still not moved to endemic stage. It was a welcome news that there will a return to some normalcy in England next month we have to be cautious because the next variant may not be as mild as Omicron.
As the unprecedented burden of Covid infection overwhelmed health systems it had important implications for cancer care.
Firstly the access to diagnostic tests became limited but even when this improved many patients were too scared to attend hospital appointments due to fear of contracting the disease. Patients were forced to attend clinics on their own and had to face the daunting challenge of getting the diagnosis and going through treatment without any support from family members. Face to face communication between health care workers and patients became more difficult due to PPE like masks and face shields and social distancing.
Secondly limited data suggested it appeared cancer patients were more vulnerable to worse outcomes from infection during surgery and chemotherapy. This made planning treatment more difficult with patients with their family forced to self isolate for 10 days before surgery which was very disruptive to work and schools.
Thirdly screening programmes like breast was suspended leading to delay in diagnosis.
Fourthly the cancer care was deprioritised leading to suboptimal and delayed care. The access to breast reconstruction was blocked forcing many women to accept mastectomy only and given the huge backlog of patients waiting for planned surgery we do not know when they will be able to have delayed reconstruction.
Fifthly many cancer trial had to be suspended which reduced current therapy options and jeopardised future cancer care.
We are yet to fully comprehend the full scale of damage these disruptions have caused however we must lessons so that if we are ever confronted with similar situation in the future we don’t behave like rabbits in a headlight.
Let’s hope we recover as soon as possible and vaccination is the key to come out of this global impasse.
#breastcancer , #breastcancerawareness , #cancercure , #cancerspecialist , #breastcancerhelp
