Doctors rue plight of cancer patients who stop getting paid, lose jobs over long leave
Telegraph | 5 February 2025
A woman who used to work in the retail marketing division of a beauty products company was benched for three months by her workplace when her cancer treatment required a long leave.
At a cancer awareness programme organised by Medica Oncology on Tuesday, doctors said they come across multiple instances where cancer patients lose their jobs or their salaries are stopped when the treatment takes weeks or months.
A doctor said he has seen children losing jobs while caring for parents or a parent quitting their job when a child was diagnosed with cancer.
The woman, 29, was working for a beauty products company when her cycle of chemotherapy started in September 2020. In November, her employer asked her to quit saying they could no longer afford to pay her while she was at home.
This was also during the early months of the Covid pandemic.
The woman had an ovary removed, underwent cycles of chemotherapy, married two years later and is now the mother of an 8-month-old girl.
“She lost her job and it was very difficult. She needed leave for quite a few weeks. A lot of cancer patients lose their jobs as workplaces often do not give long leaves for treatment,” said Arunava Roy, senior consultant and head (gynecologic oncology & women cancer initiative) at Medica Superspecialty Hospital.
Roy and several other oncologists said getting cancer survivors, especially the young people, back to the mainstream is a challenge that the society at large has to take up.
“The younger people have many work years left and can contribute to the economy. They also need the money for their own treatment and for their families. Losing ones job while undergoing treatment is devastating,” said Roy.
The woman got her job back at the same company after three months. She has also worked in other places subsequently. On Tuesday, Medica hired her in their sales team.
Sourav Datta, director of Medica Oncology, said they had hired five cancer survivors and three of them were still with them.
But not all cancer patients are able to return to work. Sometimes, a family member has to quit their job to care for the patient.
A surgical oncologist said while the problem was more acute for those working in the private sector, those in the government sector were not completely immune to the impact of long treatments.
“There are a specified number of earned leaves and medical leaves. But some cancer treatments, depending on the type and stage, can take months or even around a year. The government, too, stops paying after a certain amount of time. It becomes difficult if the patient is the earning member of the family,” said the oncologist.
Jayesh Kumar Jha, professor and head of surgical oncology at SSKM Hospital, said he has come across instances where one of the spouses had to quit their job when a child was diagnosed with cancer.
“One of the parents had no option other than quitting their job to take care of the child because the workplace was not ready to give such frequent leaves that were also several days at a time,” he said.
Jha said hematological cancer is a type of cancer that needs prolonged treatment and patients detected with it run the risk of losing their jobs.
Cancer treatment is costly and losing ones job in the midst of it can ruin a family financially, said doctors.