38 The hope to live: medical imaginary and the political economy of lung cancer care in Bangladesh

This study examines how the processes of biomedical practices of lung cancer care interact with medical imaginaries and the political economy of hope. In recent times, the prevalence of lung cancer patients has dramatically increased in Bangladesh due to the consumption of tobacco products, air pollution, and infectious diseases. Drawing on a qualitative approach, six-month fieldwork – 20 IDIs, 10 KIIs - in a privatized hospital’s oncology ward in Bangladesh, this study explores the narratives of ‘the hope to live’ of lung cancer patients. These narratives reveal that clinical therapy, while being considered a hope to recover from cancer, exacerbates biological health problems and involves social suffering associated with financial insecurity and vulnerability for seeking healthcare from the privatized sector. Family members of cancer patients recognize various hurdles in their responsibility, role, and support as caregivers. Engaging with medical anthropological literature, it discusses that patients’ lifeworld of biomedicine and clinical therapies is a socially constructed ‘medical imaginary’ and that seeking cancer care from the privatized healthcare sector reflects the political economy of hope because of the uncertainty of recovering from a fatal disease. This study contributes to the anthropological framing of cancer care experience, social suffering, and health system in Bangladesh.
Source: BMJ Open - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Open access Source Type: research