C/Can 2025 City Cancer Challenge Report of the 3rd City Stakeholder Meeting Yangon, Myanmar, 11-12 January 2018
Members of the C/Can 2025 Technical Committee and City Executive Committee for Yangon, Myanmar came together from 11-12 January at the 3rd City Stakeholder Meeting to share findings from the needs assessment process, and discuss the emerging priorities for improving access to quality cancer treatment and care in Yangon.
Needs assessment in Yangon: Key findings On the 11th and 12th January, members of the Technical Committee shared the findings of the needs assessment for their assigned focus area including pathology, laboratory medicine, haematology, radiology and nuclear medicine, medical oncology, radiotherapy, surgery, palliative care, training and education, quality of cancer care, management of oncology services, and community access. Each presentation covered: a list of the institutions and experts that contributed to the assessment and any significant data gaps; an overview of the situation at city-level including key challenges, and suggested priority actions to address these. In addition to the identification of challenges and priority actions in specific disciplines, several common issues emerged throughout the presentations and subsequent discussion: •
Inadequate number of qualified health professionals to address the city’s cancer burden due to a lack of city, regional and national training opportunities in oncology sub-specialities, and poor retention of staff
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Lack of national, resource-appropriate cancer treatment guidelines and protocols for the most common and curable cancers
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Poor data collection and management; a key
challenge is that medical records in Yangon are generally paper-based rather than electronic which means that they cannot be easily shared between clinics or physicians at different locations, treating the same patient •
High out-of-pocket costs incurred by cancer patients in Yangon for treatment and care, and lack of financial support and counseling for these patients.
Members of the Yangon Technical Committee
A closer look at pathology services in Yangon Pathology laboratories face a number of challenges including a lack of trained personnel at all levels (pathologists, microbiologists, lab officers and technicians etc) and in some cases, absence of essential equipment, appropriate facilities for storage of samples, and reagents. Although work is underway on a set of National Laboratory Quality Management Guidelines, poor quality assurance remains an issue, and there is little awareness among healthcare providers of the importance of quality and its relevance for patient safety.