More than 1,000 cancer patients are waiting for radiation therapy because the CT simulation service needed to plan their treatment at a major cancer hospital has not worked properly since 28 April, Daily Mirror reported.
Patients who cannot wait are being pushed towards private hospitals, where the procedure costs between Rs. 500,000 and Rs. 1.7 million depending on the services required — beyond the reach of most families.
Why a scanner failure stops treatment
CT simulation is a planning step, not a treatment. A CT scanner maps the precise area to be irradiated before radiation therapy begins, letting doctors aim the beam accurately and limit the dose to surrounding healthy tissue. It is essential for anyone being treated on a linear accelerator.
With the service disrupted, authorities are relying on PET scans for treatment planning instead. Medical sources told the paper this is not the preferred method for CT simulation and could further complicate the timely delivery of radiation therapy.
The effect is that the bottleneck sits upstream of the treatment machines. Patients are not waiting for a free slot on an accelerator so much as for the planning step that has to happen first.
Children are the sharpest case
The delay is described as particularly concerning for paediatric cancer patients, whose treatment cannot absorb prolonged waits. Daily Mirror reports the burden is falling especially heavily on children and their families.
The second failure behind the first
The waiting list was already growing before the CT simulation service broke down. Of the five linear accelerators available, two had been out of service, cutting the capacity to deliver radiation therapy — a problem the paper says it had previously reported.
A planning failure has now been layered on top of a treatment-capacity failure. Neither has been resolved.
Not reported
Daily Mirror does not name the hospital, describing it only as a major cancer hospital, and does not say what is wrong with the CT simulation equipment, whether a repair or replacement has been ordered, or what it would cost. There is no Health Ministry response, no estimate of how long the backlog will take to clear, and no statement of whether the two idle linear accelerators have since been returned to service.
Nor is it reported how many of the 1,000-plus patients are children, or whether any clinical triage is being applied to the waiting list.
Sri Lanka records roughly 1,000 childhood cancer cases a year, and state oncology services are free at the point of use — which is what makes a private-sector bill of up to Rs. 1.7 million a rationing mechanism rather than a choice.
