1,200 BENEFIT FROM FREE BREAST SCREEING

Story: George Ernest Asare, Kumasi

AS many as 1200 women and four men in the Kumasi metropolis and its environs benefited from a free breast screening exercise organised in Kumasi on Sunday, May 11, 2008 to mark Mothers Day.
The exercise was meant to create awareness of the breast cancer disease and to educate the beneficiaries on the need to undertake monthly self breast examination in order to detect any abnormality in their breast at early stages.
About 19 of the beneficiaries, including the four men, whose cases had reached advanced stages, were referred to the hospital for further medical check up.
According to the President of Breast Care International (BCI), Dr Beatrice Wiafe Addai, the referral was to enable them undergo chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery to correct their abnormalities.
The breast screening exercise was organised by BCI, a Kumasi based non-governmental organisation (NGO), in collaboration with Hello FM and Peace and Love Hospital in Kumasi to educate the public on the diseases and its effect on women.
This, according to the organisers, was to enable them report such cases to the hospital early enough to enable them to receive quality medical treatment.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic after the exercise, Dr Wiafe Addai expressed concern about the attitude of a section of women towards the breast cancer disease.
She pointed out that notwithstanding the continuos educational campaign , some women were still apathetic.
“It is very unfortunate that some women in an urban community like Kumasi still disregard the dangers associated with breast cancer and fail to report for early treatment until the disease had reached an advanced state where treatment is very expensive” she stressed.
She pointed out some of the victims of the disease also resorted to the use of herbal medicine to complicate their problems, stressing that reporting very late for medical treatment could cost them their life.
Stressing further, Dr Wiafe Addae noted that the failure of some women to report breast cancer cases for early treatment was because the disease was painless “ so they wait until their conditions deteriorate before reporting for treatment, but reporting late for treatment and also resorting to herbal treatment complicate their cases making treatment very expensive ”.
She said not all breast diseases were cancerous “ but early medical treatment helps to correct any defect”.
She noted further that the educational campaign on breast cancer should be sustained “ because it seems many of our women are still not conscious of the danger of the disease”.
She said it was equally important for everybody to join the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) “to reduce the cost of treatment of diseases of such nature”.