Experts call for national cancer care programme

Experts in the medical field have called on the government to stop paying lip service to cancer treatment in the country.
The medical experts made their position known at the 2012 Executive Conference of the African Organisation For Research and Training in Cancer.
The event took place at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos on December 15 and 16, 2012.
This is the first time the meeting will be hosted in Nigeria.
Prof. Isaac Adewole, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, is the president of AORTIC.
The meeting, according to Adewole, was an avenue for the executives of AORTIC and experts in the medical profession to discuss the activities of the organisation and the challenges of cancer.
In an interview with journalists, Adewole said: “This is the first time Nigeria is hosting the executive meeting.
“It is also due to my position as the president of AORTIC.
“AORTIC has come a long way but we are not resting on our oars.
“We need to address people with cancer report early and have accurate and prompt diagnoses.
“We want to ensure that Africans with cancers come for treatment and all the infrastructure should be put in place.
“Also, we want to ensure we put in place method to prevent cancer and, overall, we want to partner with the African Union to eradicate cancer.
“As a research organization, we are working with cancer organisations all over.
“We have a committee, which educates and creates awareness.
“We have been talking with the African Union and they have asked us to submit a blueprint for the African leaders’ conference scheduled for next year.”
Adewole stated with Nigeria as a member of AORTIC, there are so many benefits that it will reap.
He said the country will also be exposed to a lot of research opportunities, gain ideas and recognition.
He said Nigeria has a lot of potential that could be exposed to the outside world.
Adewole added: “No country in the world has done enough to fight cancer and that is why there is room to do more.
“In Nigeria, we need to do more to fight cancer.”
Lynette Denny, the Secretary Treasurer of AORTIC and Head of Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Cape Town, told newsmen: “AORTIC has 46 countries in Africa as members.
“In the treatment of cancer, Africans are starting to make progress.
“It was recently that people have begun to realize that cancer is real in Africa.
“Other diseases like tuberculosis, HIV, malaria and others have dominated our health system but now as it stands, we have not made enough progress doing a lot of awareness and many people develop cancer in Africa, they die and 22 countries in Africa have no way of treating cancer.
“Also they don’t have radiation, they don’t have chemotherapy and people trained to do surgical operations on cancer.
“So these people who develop cancer they just die.
“Cancer has the reputation, but if we look at the developed world, many people who had cancer can be cured and there is little of such understanding in Africa because our facilities are very poor and our people are poor.”
Denny urged government to allocate more fund for cancer treatment.
She said: “The governments in Africa need to allocate resources to health.
“Investment in their people is as good as investment in the stock market because if your people are healthy, your people will be productive and healthy people will improve the economy of the country.
“They need to allocate bigger resources of the GDP to health care and specifically for cancer.
“Every government must have a national cancer care programme.
“Also, there is the need to have a strategy for early detection of cancer and getting prompt treatment.
“We must work to improve diagnosis and treat cancer.
“Countries who don’t have such treatment machine should ensure that treatment facilities are bought and put in place.
“Much money is spent on security and buying AK47 guns but it is better to buy radiation machine than buy AK47 guns.
“We need to have the political will.
“There is a lot of money in Africa and we need to put this money where it will be useful to the people.
“We need to also have a palliative care measure in our country.
“People with cancer suffer terrible pain and they die.
“There are many countries which do not have morphine to treat pain.
“We need to be more humane and make sure people die in dignity.”
Prof. Serigne Gueye. the immediate past president of AORTIC, also stated that death from cancer will continue to rise if proper and urgent measures are not taken to halt the disease.
Gueye said: “AORTIC has played a very big role in creating awareness for cancer and is the most prominent cancer organisation in Africa.
“We have done a lot about cancer with the government and with the African Union, working with cancer experts in the diaspora and bringing their services to bear in Africa.
“The cancer situation in Africa is just like the health issues in Africa.
“We have health system dominated by communicable diseases like TB but our governments have been taking care of the big burden of communicable diseases.
“In the next decade,cancer will be more prominent than HIV, TB and malaria combined.
“Cancer prevention should start with persons, the community and the government building awareness of the prevention by controlling tobacco use, alcohol use and other HIV prevention.
“There is also need for early detection of cancer since it is affordable at this stage.
“Also, there is the need for collaborative efforts from other organisations networking and partnership.
“Everybody working together we will fight cancer.”
AORTIC was established in the 1980’s and was resuscitated in 2003 with 70 members, which has increased to about 800 members.
It organises bi-annual conferences, which bring together medical experts in the diaspora to collaborate with their counterparts in Africa to address medical challenges in Africa.