Hope and realism rhyme on China’s ‘Cancer Street’

In Changsha, a narrow street threads its way between the scrubby fields behind the giant grey Hunan Provincial Tumour Hospital and the equally drab Hunan Normal University Medical College in the provincial capital.

This is Jiatong Street, but the locals call it Cancer Street, and dozens of the passersby are wearing padded pyjamas as they wander up and down, coming and going from the huge hospitals.

Cancer Street is where hope and pragmatism blend in true Chinese style, where sick people put their fears behind them and concentrate on getting well, in a way that they can afford.

Like other Chinese shopping streets, it’s a bustling place, but the shops on Cancer Street are aimed at the hundreds of patients that come to stay here during prolonged periods of treatment.

The hospitals that loom large over the thoroughfare are enormous but they cannot cope with the numbers who need long-term residential treatment, so Jiatong Street has become a place where people stay, often for months, while they receive care.

There are wig and hat shops to cater for people who have lost their hair from radiation treatment. A fair number of stores sell miracle cures. Hotels offer cheap accommodation for long-term patients.

Ms Li is 50 years old and comes from Tangshi county, in Hunan, and she's doing sums in her head as we speak, in the stairwell of the boarding house where she is staying.

“I have a tumour and I’m getting treatment. I’ve been here almost a month. It’s going well,” she says. She is wearing a pink woolly hat with the Chanel logo, and she rents a room with two beds at 800 yuan (€96) a month, so her family can stay with her and take care of her.

People began to move here because they couldn’t stay in the hospital while getting long-term treatment for a couple of months, and now it is a fully fledged community serving cancer patients and their needs.

“This neighbourhood is quite convenient. I can find everything I need. The cost for treatment is at least 30,000 yuan (€3,650), and I’ve borrowed it from my family and relatives. It’s not easy, because the people in my village don’t have that much money either,” she says.

Underfunded
China is reforming its healthcare system as costs rise, public hospitals face increasing problems and the number of patients with chronic illnesses continues to increase. The country's healthcare system is seriously underfunded, and the government has said it will try and improve the state healthcare provision as a priority. The country has a high savings rate, and one of the reasons for that is that people save to pay for treatment if they fall ill.

The central government has pledged to invest 400 billion yuan (€48.33 billion) by 2020 in improving various areas including the grassroots healthcare system, psychological disease prevention, the construction of a digital public health information network, medical device innovation, the development of traditional Chinese medicine and the training of general practitioners.

In 2012 the healthcare coverage was expanded to cover critical illnesses, but implementation of the scheme is proving difficult and there is strong resistance to allowing private insurers play a role.

Under the current situation in China, patients either have to pay the entire cost of treatment or claim reimbursement after returning to their home town and submitting a complicated series of forms to the local health authority.

“I think the medical insurance will pay about 50 per cent and then I can probably get another 30 per cent reimbursed after I go back to the village. I hope so anyway,” Ms Li says.

In one shop, six people in pyjamas are playing mahjong. A man stands outside the shop, smoking, hailing people walking past, cheerful.

“Everyone is equal in the face of cancer,” he says, giving his surname as Liu. He owns one of the hotels offering accommodation for cancer patients. He has 24 rooms, each with two beds per room, and it costs 40 yuan (€4.87) per bed per night.

“Most of my guests are here for cancer treatment. One of my residents, a 71-year-old man, was told his cancer treatment would cost 50,000 yuan (€6,040). Instead of going for the treatment, he opted to go travelling, heading on holiday to Beijing,” says Mr Liu.

“Business has been particularly busy in the past two years,” he says.

One of the areas health authorities are focusing on in Hunan province is preventing oral cancer by stopping people from chewing betel nuts, a major habit in the region, said to be worse than smoking as a cause of cancer.

One of the mahjong players is a Mr Li, from Chenzhou city in Hunan.

He has been here on and off for five months and has prostate cancer. He had chemotherapy for 40 days and went back to rest for a month and then came back for another operation.

Small groups of visitors to the hospital set off on the 500m walk to the hospitals, like pilgrims.

“The hospital is very busy, there are always so many people,” says Mr Li. “I can get 40 per cent of what I pay for treatment reimbursed by my village. It is not enough but better than nothing.”