Many Cancer Patients Do Not Get Adequate Support to Deal With Their Disease

A cancer charity organization revealed that thousands of cancer patients are forced to deal with the disease on their own as they do not get any support from family and friends. The Macmillan Cancer Support carried out a survey involving over 1,800 cancer patients and found that a quarter of the newly diagnosed patients lacked support from family and friends with 12 percent of the respondents revealing that they did not have a single visit from their families in more than six months.

The lack of support was also having a negative effect on their recovery with half of those who felt isolated revealing that they often skipped meals or did not eat properly due to lack of help. Around 60 percent of the respondents said that they were unable to do household chores while a quarter of them stating that they had not been able to wash themselves properly.

“Patients are going hungry, missing medical appointments and even deciding to reject treatment altogether which could be putting their lives at risk — all because of a lack of support. But these figures are just the tip of the iceberg. As the number of people living with cancer is set to double from two to four million by 2030, isolation will become an increasing problem and we need to address this now”, the organization’s chief executive Ciaran Devane said.



Source-Medindia