To help raise awareness and promote early detection of breast cancer cases, Medifem Multi-Specialist Hospital and Fertility Centre in Accra has held a free breast screening exercise for residents of Danfa, a suburb of Ayi Mensah in the Greater Accra Region.
The exercise was carried out in collaboration with the Christ Anglican Church, Legon, as part of activities marking the church’s outreach programme in the community.
Lead general practitioner at the hospital, Dr Choice O. Wereko-Dankwa, said Medifem was committed to making its expertise available to communities where it operated.
She commended Christ Anglican Church for the initiative, and stressed the need for more organisations to collaborate with healthcare providers to raise awareness on the disease, as it was one of the major causes of death among women in Ghana.
With October being the World Breast Cancer Awareness Month, she said the hospital was ready to partner other stakeholders in the health sector to intensify efforts at raising awareness on the disease.
Patrons of the outreach thanked the church and Medifem Hospital for bringing the health screening programme to the area.
Madam Grace Anku, a beneficiary, said for many of the community folks the exercise was timely, since it was the first time they were being screened for signs and symptoms of breast cancer as well as receiving some education on the condition.
Breast cancer starts when cells in the breast begin to grow out of control. These cells usually form a tumor that can often be felt as a lump. The tumor is malignant (cancer) if the cells can grow into surrounding tissues or spread to distant areas of the body. This occurs mainly in women with just two per cent rate of occurrence in men.
More than a million women worldwide are diagnosed each year, and more than half of the women die from the disease.
In Ghana, the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) alone records about 400 new cases every year of which more than 1,000 people eventually die. The age group mostly affected is between 40 and 49.
It is reported that about 60 per cent of patients go to seek medical attention only at very late stages of the cancer when little or nothing could be done about their situation, hence the need for sensitisation to enable women detect changes in their breast early enough and report on time.
By Abeduwaa Lucy Appiah
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