China grapples with economic burden of cancers

Hong Kong

AS ONE of China's wave of entrepreneurs, Xiao Caiyu built and ran a small pork business with her husband that allowed her to squirrel away a nest egg of more than 30,000 yuan (S$6,400). A diagnosis of cervical cancer wiped that out in months. Her family, now deeply in debt, closed the business. "If the cancer gets worse, I won't get treatment," said the 52-year-old mother of three. "What treatment? There's no money."

Across China, families who have ridden the country's economic boom to prosperity often plummet into financial ruin after a cancer diagnosis. In a nation where most people rely on government health insurance, cancer patients are finding that costs, including expensive drugs, far outstrip coverage.