EVERY OTHER DAY A WOMAN IN JAMAICA DIES FROM CERVICAL CANCER , A TOTALLY PREVENTABLE SITUATION.
Yesterday I did an outside broadcast from the Jamaica Cancer Society, where they were putting special emphasis on early detection in the fight against cervical cancer. That is where I got that shocking information above, in an interview with Dr. Joseph Hall, the longest serving member of the board.
According to Dr. Hall, where the public government clinics where poor women throughout the island have to go to do any testing exist at all, the service is totally disgraceful (my words). To begin with, the results take some 7-8 months to be ready and as we know, time is of the essence when dealing with cancer and many women do not even go back for the results as they have long forgotten that they even took the test..
To make matters worse, where the women cannot find the money to pay, the results are withheld!
What is even more disturbing is the fact that where the test shows that there is ab problem and further action needs to be taken urgently there is no counselling at these clinics so the poor women are left without the options being given to them.
The result of this gross slackness and lack of concern for the less privileged (which Dr. Hall says he has brought to the attention of Ministers of Health in all governments) is that every other day, a Jamaican woman dies from cervical cancer, something that is totally preventable. Naturally the women who must suffer because of this undesirable situation in government clinics, are poor women, as women of means can pay the small fee at the Cancer society or do their tests at private institutions.
The Jamaica Cancer Society has been doing a mammoth task to try and educate the population about how simple it is to reduce the rate of some cancers, Breast , Colon, Prostate and Cervical by early detection. Unfortunately, they do not have the capacity to service the entire island, but it is the duty of the government to provide the facilities at the various clinics islandwide, but where they do it, it is in a careless, sloppy, uncaring manner so our incidence of cervical cancer has only reduced from 35 per 100,000 since we started testing to 27 per 100,000 whereas in countries that take women's health seriously, the rate has now fallen to between 5 and 7 per 1000,000 during the same period.
To add insult to injury, only one public hospital in the island, offers mammograms to test for breast cancer.
I was horrified by the information and wondered out loud if the various women's organisations were aware of the cavalier attitude of successive governments to women's health issues...I mean poor women.
I will certainly be doing my part to highlight this issue and now that Jamaica has a female prime minister and one who loves to tell us how she loves the poor, I am prepared to bet it will make absolutely no difference to how women of no or limited means are treated by the Ministry of Health.
Yesterday I did an outside broadcast from the Jamaica Cancer Society, where they were putting special emphasis on early detection in the fight against cervical cancer. That is where I got that shocking information above, in an interview with Dr. Joseph Hall, the longest serving member of the board.
According to Dr. Hall, where the public government clinics where poor women throughout the island have to go to do any testing exist at all, the service is totally disgraceful (my words). To begin with, the results take some 7-8 months to be ready and as we know, time is of the essence when dealing with cancer and many women do not even go back for the results as they have long forgotten that they even took the test..
To make matters worse, where the women cannot find the money to pay, the results are withheld!
What is even more disturbing is the fact that where the test shows that there is ab problem and further action needs to be taken urgently there is no counselling at these clinics so the poor women are left without the options being given to them.
The result of this gross slackness and lack of concern for the less privileged (which Dr. Hall says he has brought to the attention of Ministers of Health in all governments) is that every other day, a Jamaican woman dies from cervical cancer, something that is totally preventable. Naturally the women who must suffer because of this undesirable situation in government clinics, are poor women, as women of means can pay the small fee at the Cancer society or do their tests at private institutions.
The Jamaica Cancer Society has been doing a mammoth task to try and educate the population about how simple it is to reduce the rate of some cancers, Breast , Colon, Prostate and Cervical by early detection. Unfortunately, they do not have the capacity to service the entire island, but it is the duty of the government to provide the facilities at the various clinics islandwide, but where they do it, it is in a careless, sloppy, uncaring manner so our incidence of cervical cancer has only reduced from 35 per 100,000 since we started testing to 27 per 100,000 whereas in countries that take women's health seriously, the rate has now fallen to between 5 and 7 per 1000,000 during the same period.
To add insult to injury, only one public hospital in the island, offers mammograms to test for breast cancer.
I was horrified by the information and wondered out loud if the various women's organisations were aware of the cavalier attitude of successive governments to women's health issues...I mean poor women.
I will certainly be doing my part to highlight this issue and now that Jamaica has a female prime minister and one who loves to tell us how she loves the poor, I am prepared to bet it will make absolutely no difference to how women of no or limited means are treated by the Ministry of Health.
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