The government should regulate insurance companies and quality of cancer drugs so that those undergoing treatment for the disease but finding it tough to bear the long-term cost can benefit, historian Sugata Bose said at a Bengal Oncology meet on Sunday.

The government should ensure that the insurance companies don’t harass the patients while reimbursing treatment costs, Bose said.

“The government must come up with insurance schemes that cover everyone. Such schemes are available in southern states. We should learn lessons from them. But the insurance companies are always required to be regulated by the state. Because questions arise as to whether they will really reimburse the cost. The government should monitor this so that patients are not harassed,” Bose said.

The former MP stressed the need for government intervention to ensure that the big pharmaceutical companies maintain the quality of generic drugs.

“In the US, branded medicines are too costly. They often make unconscionable profits. But in India the problem is perhaps of a different kind. The government must play the role of a regulator to see to it that quality is being maintained in generic drugs or their copied version,” Bose said after his speech at the GD Birla auditorium.

While delivering the keynote address, Bose said it was crucial that early detection and cancer treatment facilities were available in the district hospitals so that people are spared the expense of coming to the city for detection and treatment.

“Cancer treatment facilities are mostly concentrated in cities. This problem is typical of Punjab and Bengal. The cost of travelling to cities leaves the families constrained financially,” Bose said.

Bose also focussed on the need for early detection of cancer among the poor.

‘There is a class-based inequity that I have pointed out in my speech where the poorest of the poor can only get palliative care because their cancer is detected so late and therefore we have to make it certain that screening for early detection of cancer is available to everyone,” Bose said.

The secretary of the Bengal Oncology Foundation, oncologist Gautam Mukhopadhyay, said early detection was necessary to the extent that it made treatment affordable for the poor.

“The cost of cancer treatment is prohibitive. It’s not a one-time treatment. The same patient undergoes surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy over several years.... If the cancer returns, treatment will recur. Early detection can ensure cure through one modality treatment,” he said.