Former India boxer Dingko Singh awaits cancer test results, financial relief

NEW DELHI: Sitting in a two-bed hospital ward, Dingko Singh smiled when discussing his favourite subject – boxing. The celebrated 42-year-old pugilist from Manipur, once hailed as Indian boxing’s golden boy, had a lot of anecdotes to share, but that’s not where his mind is focused presently.
Dingko has a more immediate matter to worry about – arranging finances to fund his treatment as doctors test him for a possible relapse of liver cancer, for which he had first been successfully treated three years ago.The third floor of the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) here is where the Arjuna and Padma Shri awardee has been undergoing tests since January 28, when he was admitted after suffering jaundice in his hometown of Sekta, near Imphal.
Though there’s a blockage in his bile duct, the relapse has yet not been confirmed by doctors with some advanced tests still pending.
“We had come to the ILBS for a check-up after I contracted jaundice at home. So far, the tests haven’t shown anything suspicious, but the doctors didn’t want to take any chances. On Tuesday, they will conduct another biopsy, endoscopy and ultrasound to assess if there are new traces in other areas. Looks like, I am here for a long haul,” Dingko told TOI.
It’s this long stay in the hospital that has caused premature wrinkles on his forehead. Dingko has only been worrying about arranging funds from his friends and relatives. When he left Imphal, the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) regional director at the SAG centre, where he’s currently posted as a senior coach, had provided him Rs 50,000 as advance to meet his medical expenses.
“That amount was spent on booking flight tickets and paying an upfront admission fee of Rs 25,000 to the hospital. Since then, it’s been a struggle as our savings are drying up. We didn’t know that I would be admitted this time and the treatment since January 28 has cost us around Rs 1.5 lakh. We are paying it from our own pocket,” Dingko’s wife Babai said. The room charges itself are Rs 3000 per day. Dingko, however, isn’t complaining. His only plea is to make the medication and treatment cashless. “It would a huge burden off if SAI can link its bank account with the hospital’s so that payments can made directly.”
Alternately, there’s another option of the concerned department in SAI collecting all the bills related to his treatment and reimbursing them directly to the hospital. “This will help me to focus entirely on my treatment and not to worry about arranging money,” Dingko said. His financial state – as of most middle- and lower-class former sportsmen in India -- and his urgent need for money only highlight the loopholes in the current sporting system.
His present situation brings out the helplessness former athletes face in absence of a robust health care policy. The system doesn’t provide for a cashless health insurance cover to athletes and coaches working under the SAI’s umbrella and they have to get the amount reimbursed under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) only after submitting actual bills, which itself is a lengthy process. These bills don’t cover sundry charges, like amount spent on an attendant(s) stay and food and other expenses.
Also, a patient, as in Dingko’s case, has to first make the payments himself and then get them reimbursed from SAI or their respective departments like Services Sports Control Board (SSCB) or Railways. Often, athletes don’t have enough money to spend on costly treatment. This is where the cashless health policy and a fixed insurance cover would help.
It’s well-documented that when Dingko, whose remarkable gold medal run at the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games had ended India’s 16-year wait for an Asiad medal glory in boxing, had to sell his three-bedroom house in Imphal to raise money for treatment when detected first with liver cancer in October-November 2016. Since then, after undergoing surgery on January 6, 2017 where 70 percent of his liver was removed, Dingko’s family has spent more than Rs 10 lakh on his treatment, with little help from central and state governments.
In February 2017, then sports minister Vijay Goel had made assurances about providing full financial support to the boxer. But no help has arrived at his doorstep till date.