Paper Short Abstract:

This ethnographic study investigates how cancer patients and their families managed the financial burden of breast cancer treatment in Central Vietnam. It provides conceptual thinking of chronicity in the context of breast cancer as one that is construed by political and economic facts.

Paper Abstract:

Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer among Vietnamese women, causing tremendous emotional, social, and financial burdens for patients and families. Based on an ethnographic study conducted in Central Vietnam, we investigate how cancer patients and their families managed the financial burden of breast cancer care. Our findings suggest that many patients must rely on informal arrangements, partly on support from their social network but heavily via detrimental strategies such as borrowing high-interest loans to settle the enormous medical and non-medical expenses associated with cancer treatment. Cancer care is largely about managing the health and social security systems, as women proactively researched available information and took enormous work to prove their deservingness for some types of assistance. This type of ‘work’ often required women to disclose their cancer status to people in the communities or use tactics such as paying a bribe to accelerate the application process. Affected families must make hard calculations to prioritise the pressing health need of a member diagnosed with cancer and in many circumstances, forfeited the education of their young children. This article emphasises the need to attend to how living with ill health for people in under-resourced settings is shaped by and amplifies social and economic vulnerabilities, and provides conceptual thinking of chronicity in the context of breast cancer as one that is construed by political and economic facts.