Opinion: Belarus preserved oncology care system, which collapsed in other countries

A clear system of oncology care – which has collapsed in all other countries – is successfully functioning in Belarus – as stated by Prof. Sergei Krasny, the Deputy Director for Research of the Alexandrov National Cancer Centre of Belarus, Doctor of Medical Sciences, and academician of the National Academy of Sciences, in his talk with the ONT TV channel

According to the expert, the oncology care system gives tremendous results, “All specialists and resources are concentrated in one place. All cancer patients are treated only in oncology facilities. Serious foreign studies have proven that in an oncology hospital the results are higher than in the general medical network. Everyone has understood this and is trying to restore it. However, it’s not so easy to do, because it requires enormous resources.”

Encouraging results in the treatment of cancer patients in Belarus are also due to a good material and technical base, “Thanks to government support, several state programmes in the field of oncology were carried out to re-equip our system. We received state-of-the-art equipment for all oncology institutions and centres: republican and dispensaries. We have everything we could want, including a PET positron emission tomography centre and a unique molecular genetics laboratory.”

Sergei Krasny underlined that the President of Belarus regularly visits the Alexandrov National Cancer Centre, “Head of State Aleksandr Lukashenko visits our centre every five years, and sometimes even more often. During these visits, an analysis of completed assignments is carried out, and then a new wave of development follows. This is extremely important for our system.”