By Tina Amanda
The Engrace Life Foundation has taken a campaign against breast cancer to the streets of Port Harcourt to sensitize the people especially the female gender about the sickness and possible ways of preventing it.
Our Correspondent who monitored the campaign walk tagged “Pink Naija walk” organized by Engrace Life Foundation in collaboration with the Rivers State Ministry of Health reported that the campaign kicked off from Elechi Amadi Polytechnic, through Stadium Road to Aba road and finally Rumuola Road.
In an interview with our Correspondent, the stage four cancer survival and the founder of Engrace Life Foundation, Ethel Olomu, emphasized that the reason for the breast cancer campaign awareness is breast cancer sickness is not a respecter of anybody, as it does not know class whether poor or rich in the society.
She urged women and girls to regularly do breast examinations as breast cancer is preventable once it is detected early it’s curable. Noting If they noticed any abnormality in their breast they should quickly go to any health care around them
“The campaign is not for women alone, including girls in secondary school, last year during our campaign program a man walked in with his ten-year-old daughter who already has full-blown breast cancer. The children also need to be breast health aware, because we are teaching and catching them young, they will also go back and teach their pairs and parents”.
“We go to different communities, this week we have about three communities we will visit. We do not just end the awareness campaign in Rivers State, we are creating awareness in Lagos, within the month we are going to Ekiti.
“We just came back from Yobe last week where we had an outreach with about five thousand people in attendance, we will be going to Uyo in this month till 31 October 2023, before we close the cancer awareness activities.
“We have made a lot of progress because before we came in nobody was talking about breast cancer, nobody was educating the public about it. Now lots of women know how to check their breasts.
“Breast is one neglected part that has to be checked every month on how healthy it is. Women have become conscious of knowing every month they need to do a self-examination on their breast”.
Olomu explained that the challenges they have always faced in carrying out the cancer awareness campaign are finance, partners, and sponsors, while stating that if they can get more collaborations it would help them to reach out to more people.
“We thank the Ministry of health that have always stood by us and some other supporting partners, the World Health Organisation, the Medical Women’s Association, and Public Health Physician that have given medical support. This kind of program requires finances so we can create more awareness in the media”.
Commissioner of Health Rivers State, Dr. Adaeze Oreh, urged women and girls to submit themselves to regular checks as cancer detected early is curable.
The Commissioner who was represented by the Deputy Director Public Non-communicable Disease Program Manager Rivers State Ministry of Health,
Dr Sandra Abolo said the state government is doing a lot to prevent and control breast cancer through the Ministry.
“The Rivers State Ministry of Health is happy about the health walk for cancer awareness we want to commend the Engrace Life Foundation for the good work they are doing on Cancer awareness we are open to continuous collaboration to fight cancer in the state.
“The state government is doing a lot to control and prevent breast cancer through the state Ministry of Health by collaborating with development partners to fight breast cancer, we also have a world-class standard cardiovascular and treatment center in the state.
The President of Nigeria Cancer Society, Dr. Alhassan Umar, who was represented by the founder of Next of Hope Cancer Advocacy Community, Dozie Akwarandu, said cancer is endemic and it is the largest cancer suffered in Nigeria while urging people to modify their lifestyle such as feeding, alcohol intake, smoking, things that are adjustable to living healthy.
He explained further that statistics show that about twelve thousand women are diagnosed with breast cancer and about seventy percent of women living with cancer die as a result of late presentation, fear, or other factors that make people not survive breast cancer.
“There are so many people surviving cancer, we want people who are not yet diagnosed to know that there are things they can modify in their life, modifiable factors that can help them to live without cancer be it Prostate, cervical, breast or any other type of cancer can come to anybody of any age now.
“The modifying things are things you change and adjust on your own, they are lifestyle such as feeding, alcohol intake, smoking, those things that are adjustable to live healthy.
“Breast cancer is not for women alone, as far as you have breast, there are men who have been diagnosed with breast cancer though it is common with women. Statistics show that about twelve thousand women are diagnosed with breast cancer out of it there is a loss of seventy percent of women living with cancer due to late presentation, fear, or other factors that make people not survive breast cancer.
“Breast cancer is the largest cancer suffered in Nigeria and the message we want people to know is that cancer is no more a death sentence”.
Our Correspondent reports that the cancer awareness theme is: “Close the Care Gap”
