Breast Cancer Hub – meeting the challenges to screening, diagnosis, treatment, and support to cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic in North-East India

Abstract

We report the challenges faced in the villages' Breast Cancer Hub (BCH) adopted in Cachar, Assam, India, since February 2020 during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. We also present the overall challenges, during COVID-19, even in the urban sectors, with good financial conditions. We report the challenges faced at the grassroots level and how we addressed the concerns. The villages BCH adopted for door-to-door cancer screening, BCH takes care end to end, starting from generating the income certificate, accompanying the patients to the hospitals, helping with registration, communication with doctors, treatment management, covering all the supplemental expenses, with diligent follow-ups, and counseling, making sure that the re-visits to hospitals are also carried out by the BCH team, or in most cases, the patients are negligent to continue their treatment and miss out on the follow-up dates. COVID-19 pandemic worsened the prevailing difficult situation of cancer diagnosis and treatment in North East India.

Keywords

• cancer
• covid-19
• diagnosis
• screening
• treatment