It is not easy to take care of cancer patients. The task becomes harder still when these patients are little kids. Yet one non-profit, the Loving Heart Daycare Center, has taken up this Herculean task. The center located at Imadol, Lalitpur is the first and the only day nursery in Nepal specializing in taking care of children with cancer. Founder Samir Shrestha says the center is perpetually short of money. As such it has been able to open its doors only twice a week. Rents for two months are due. The search for a bigger, institutional donor has proven elusive. Still, at present, the center provides free service to 18 children aged 6-17.
There is still no complete cure of cancer, a group of diseases that are a leading cause of death around the world. Accurate data on cancer mortality, especially among children, are unavailable in Nepal. The WHO estimates that globally around 300,000 children, aged 19 years or below, are diagnosed with cancer each year.
“According to our estimates, the number of cancer patients in Nepal is increasing by 30,000-35,000 every year. Among them, 30 percent are children,” says Rudra Lal Kadariya, a member of the Cancer Council Nepal which is also associated with the Childhood Cancer International—an umbrella body of childhood cancer grassroots and national parents organizations.
The stigma associated with cancer is also devastating, not only for the patients, but for their families and friends as well. Nepal lacks cancer awareness on many levels and the healthcare system is not well-equipped to diagnose and treat most patients.
“In an underdeveloped country like Nepal, cancer is not only a health problem, but also a socio-economic and psycho-social one,” says Shrestha.
