Punjab Chief Minister uses back-to-back awareness days to promise all-stage cancer care and free bone treatment, as the Rs75 billion Nawaz Sharif institute moves towards opening
LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has ordered public hospitals across the province to step up breast cancer awareness, promising that a government cancer institute under construction in Lahore will treat the disease at every stage and that patients already qualify for up to Rs1 million in free treatment.
In a message for Breast Cancer Awareness Day on Monday, she said breast cancer was treatable and that early diagnosis improved outcomes. A day later, on World Osteoporosis Day, she urged people to protect their bones through diet and screening, pointing to free bone and joint treatment available through the province’s health insurance network.
Taken together, the two statements sketch the provincial government’s health pitch: catch disease early through outreach and data, and treat it for free in public hospitals. The centrepiece of that pitch, the Nawaz Sharif Institute of Cancer Treatment and Research, is not yet open.
Awareness first, then data
“We are building the world’s largest Nawaz Sharif Cancer Hospital in Lahore. We will ensure the treatment of all types of cancer at the Nawaz Sharif Institute of Cancer Treatment and Research,” the chief minister said.
She said the hospital would be equipped with modern machinery and medicines for timely diagnosis and treatment, would house a state-of-the-art research laboratory and would have a psychiatry department offering psychological and emotional support to patients during treatment. The mental-health component fits a wider provincial effort; Punjab held consultations last month on a mental health policy framework for 2026 to 2035.
Maryam Nawaz also stressed the need for reliable data on breast cancer patients, saying it would help improve treatment facilities. Lady Health Inspectors across Punjab, she said, were collecting information to support early diagnosis. She urged women not to ignore unusual physical changes, called awareness a shared social responsibility and repeated her commitment to bringing diagnosis and treatment within reach of women throughout the province.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif struck a similar note in his own message the same day, pledging that no woman would be denied timely treatment because of where she lived or what she could afford, and praising Lady Health Workers for reaching women in remote districts.
A disease Pakistan finds too late
Pakistan has one of the highest breast cancer rates in Asia. Specialists commonly estimate that about one in nine Pakistani women faces the disease in her lifetime, with nearly 90,000 new cases and around 40,000 deaths a year, figures cited at awareness events last October. National cancer registration remains patchy, which is why the chief minister’s emphasis on data matters as much as her promise of new beds.
Doctors say the high death rate is driven less by the biology of the disease than by late presentation. Many women reach hospital only when a tumour is advanced, held back by stigma, cost, distance and a reluctance to be examined. Lahore’s tertiary hospitals see patients referred from across Punjab and beyond, often at stages where treatment is longer, costlier and less likely to succeed.
Where the Lahore institute stands
The Nawaz Sharif Institute of Cancer Treatment and Research is being built in Valencia Town, with access from the motorway and the Lahore Ring Road. The Provincial Development Working Party approved it at Rs74.92 billion, and officials now put the full cost at about Rs75 billion. Construction began on October 30, 2024.
Once complete, the institute is planned to have about 915 beds, including a 100-bed block for free palliative care for stage III and stage IV patients. Plans include paediatric oncology, operation theatres, intensive care, ten radiation therapy bunkers, a bone marrow centre, a 30-bed emergency department, a hospice and accommodation for patients’ families. The government describes it as Pakistan’s first fully government-run cancer hospital, and says patients from other provinces will also be treated free.
The opening has been rescheduled more than once. Officials told reporters in October 2025 that part of the institute could be finished by February 2026 and a 100-bed block made operational in March. In June, the government set July 31 for inaugurating the first packages. When Health Minister Khawaja Salman Rafique toured the site on July 23, no date was given, and the board of governors reviewed progress and staffing again in August. The chief minister’s choice of words this week, “we are building”, indicates the institute has yet to admit patients.
For context, the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust’s Rs30 billion Karachi hospital is set to open on December 29, giving the country another dedicated cancer centre outside Lahore.
Paying for treatment
Until the institute opens, free cancer care in Punjab runs mainly through the Punjab Health Initiative Management Company (PHIMC) and its empanelled hospitals. The company’s board was told on October 14 that more than 48,000 cancer patients had been registered under its programme and that spending on its specialised free-treatment schemes had roughly doubled to Rs36.5 billion in four months. The government has cited an annual cancer budget of about Rs10 billion.
The provincial information minister has said free treatment is available at every stage of cancer in Multan as well, part of an effort to reduce the flow of patients to Lahore. The chief minister has also backed a pilot of an AI-assisted scanner that screens for several cancers and flags reduced bone density from a single CT scan.
Osteoporosis, the silent fracture
In her World Osteoporosis Day message on Tuesday, the chief minister said this year’s theme, which the International Osteoporosis Foundation frames as “Build, Protect and Strengthen Your Bones for Life”, stressed bone health at every age. She called osteoporosis a silent disease because it often causes no symptoms until a bone breaks.
She advised a balanced diet rich in calcium, vitamin D and protein, and said the government was providing free treatment for bone and joint disease through the Health Initiative Management Company and panel hospitals. The Population Welfare Department, she added, offers basic healthcare and nutrition counselling for women and children, and mobile health units take these services to workers.
Globally, about one in three women and one in five men over 50 will suffer an osteoporotic fracture, and up to 80% of people who break a bone this way are never diagnosed or treated for the underlying condition, according to the foundation. In Pakistan, where vitamin D deficiency is widespread and many women have limited exposure to sunlight, doctors say the risk is often underestimated.
The test of this week’s messages lies in delivery: whether Lady Health Inspectors’ data turns into a working breast cancer registry, whether women in rural districts get screening close to home, a priority the chief minister has called her red line in other contexts, and when the Lahore institute opens its doors.
An opening date for the first phase would give the many families now travelling to Lahore for cancer treatment something firmer than a promise.
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