Patients await examinations at the HCMC Oncology Hospital. Across the country, cancer patients face crowded hospitals and long waiting lists for treatment.

Pollution and changing lifestyles are being blamed for an alarming health trend in Vietnam.

Vietnam has 5,000 new cases of cervical cancer reported every year, said Nguyen Ba Duc, head of Vietnam Cancer Prevention and Treatment Institute.

In Hanoi, the rate of women diagnosed with cancer has doubled since 1988 and the number of cases of breast and cervical cancer has tripled over the same period, according to statistics from the capital city’s K Hospital.

Globally, cervical cancer kills more than 270,000 women annually and some 493,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, more than 80 percent of them in developing nations.

In Ho Chi Minh City, 19 out of every 100,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and 17 out of every 100,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, HCMC Cancer Association Chairman Nguyen Chan Hung said, citing recent statistics.

Cancers that affect the lungs, liver and stomach are often found late and are thus hard to cure, Hung said.

Children are also at risk, with the National Hospital of Children’s Cancer Department treating around 3,000 patients every year.

Around 200,000 Vietnamese people develop cancer each year, the Ministry of Health has reported.

“Negative changes in the environment, in people’s nutrition regimen and lifestyles are some of the factors that are causing more cancer cases,” Hung said.

In Minh Duc Town in the northern city of Hai Phong, residents claim cancer triggered by air pollution - which in some places is up to 12 times higher than allowed levels - and polluted underground water accounts for 70 percent of recent deaths in the area.

Hai Phong has the highest annual rate of cancer-related deaths nationwide, with up to 4,000 patients diagnosed with cancer every year, according to a study by the city’s health agency last month.

Vietnam’s hospitals are not coping with the climbing number of patients.

In Hai Phong, the Viet Tiep Hospital for cancer patients has only 40 beds.

At the Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital, there are 1,100 beds and 150 doctors for 1,600 inpatients.

Each department in the hospital has 100 to 500 cancer patients on surgical waiting lists, some of whom wait for months for their operations, said the hospital director Le Hoang Minh.

Most of the country’s cancer patients rush to Hanoi and HCMC for treatment but HCMC Oncology Hospital doctor Pham Xuan Dung said “we cannot handle them all.”

It’s become a common occurrence at central hospitals, including Cho Ray, Bach Mai or K, to have two or three patients sharing a bed, according to the Ministry of Health.

Studies have proven that one-third of known cancers can be prevented, one-third can be cured if found early enough and the other third can be treated to extend the patients’ life, said Nguyen Ba Duc, head of Vietnam’s Cancer Treatment and Prevention Institute.

But this is not the case in Vietnam where many hospitals do not have the necessary medicine and equipment for cancer diagnosis and treatment, said Phan Thanh Hai, director of Ho Chi Minh City Medical Diagnosis Center (Medic).

Phi Yen from Hanoi’s K Hospital said the country needed around 300 kilograms of pain-killers a year for cancer patients alone. But only 14 kilograms are imported for both cancer patients and post-operative patients.

Many of the 3,000 cancer patients at the National Hospital of Children require blood transfusions but its cancer department “has been facing a crisis” with many child patients dying because there is not enough blood, said the department head Bui Ngoc Lan.

Hai said some hospitals provide surgery but “no after-surgery care.” “They’re also weak in psychotherapy to help lessen the patients’ pain,” he said.

“We’re also way behind other countries in the use of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Computerized Tomography (CT), both standard imaging tools to help pinpoint the location of cancer within the body before beginning treatment.”

Hai also said an overload of work restricted doctors from properly keeping track of the progression of each cancer case, meaning each patient did not get quality care. “This is why more cancer patients are seeking treatment overseas,” he said.

Suspected agents

In July locals of a small community in HCMC’s Binh Tan District reported 17 people had died from cancer since the 1980s.

Inspectors from city authorities found the neighborhood once hosted 1,000 factories that dyed cloth and recycled plastics. Eighty percent of the factories were moved but the area wasstill contaminated with toxic waste, the inspectors found, and locals say their tap water smells foul.

Local Duong Van Thanh said he lost his father to lung cancer and his mother to a brain tumor.

Thanh said 10 of his relatives had died of various forms of cancer.

Cancer-related fatalities in the neighborhood have increased since 1997, he said.

Nguyen Thi Dam said her son had died from lung cancer and Duong Cong Thiet’s mother died of a brain tumor.

In April, authorities and locals of central Thanh Hoa Province blamed contaminated water for a sharp increase in cancer cases in their commune.

Statistics from the local medical center showed that cancer caused more than 70 percent of local deaths over the past few years.

Recently the provincial health agencies informed that more than 20 local water samples contained toxins. The specific toxins were not identified.

Well water is suspected of being the main cause for the local cancer outbreak.

Commune authorities have asked residents to set up rainwater tanks as a temporary solution, but rainwater is only used for cooking.

Another serious case of environment pollution was discovered last week when Hao Duong leather company was caught releasing untreated carcinogenic effluent into a river in HCMC’s Nha Be District.

Since mid-September the firm has discharged around 2,500 cubic meters of effluent to the river every day, dozens of times higher that the permitted level, the city Department of Natural Resources and Environment said Monday.

Reported by Thanh Nien staff