Frightening Statistics.........Cervical cancer testing policy in Jamaica

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.

Tiring but Fun

This Saturday with the Fun and Thrills family was tiring but  lots of fun.
We had volunteered to  marshal at the Jamaica Cancer Society's fund raising 5k run/walk at stadium east and it meant being at the stadium from 6.30 am.

Marshals and runners from Fun and Thrills stop to pose for a group photo 

Apart from some of us marshaling, a number of the members of the family also entered the race. These were Michelle, Sparkles, Howie, Deiree, Maurice, Bernadette, Michael and Kim and guess what, we won a medal!

Of course its we! Whereas it is Bernadette who  will actually  collect the bronze medal, how could she have done so well if she had not been keeping fit riding with us? 

Just kidding, you did it all on your own Bernadette so wear it with pride.

Charles had sworn that Howie would have been the overall winner but unfortunately while he didn't, it is still possible that he did well in his category, for we are still waiting to hear his time. As usual uncle Roy entered and never even came in last, instead easily outdoing people some 65 years his juniour!

 Charles Simpson, Charles Williams and I were to have monitored the first three runners but after a while we couldn't find Charles Williams then someone told us had he had apparently given up marshaling and was seen at an intersection directing traffic. I suspect he gave up the marshaling as he couldn't keep up with the runners for apart from the downhill sections, we were in  real danger of them running faster than we could ride!

 Other marshals were Orrel, Alric, Sharon, Fatman, Peter, Teresa, Ramon and Pat. Omar was of course there in his capacity as official photographer.

After we had seen the last walkers safely back to the stadium, we met at the eastern gate to get ready to ride to Bob Marley's beach for the real fun, but Charles (Ayatollah) was no where in sight. It was Alrick who suggested that he would soon reappear, coming from a direction  we least expected! He surely did for it is the Police station that he was walking from, saying he had gone there to arrange parking for Sparkles' car.

 As usual it was an easy ride but by then the sun was blazing and at times I was tempted to summon a support vehicle to stop and enjoy some air condition. However I kept reminding myself that the distance was not very far so I could survive and kept going.

 The great disappointment was that on arrival we discovered that the cook did not prepare for the numbers he had been instructed to, so some 10 or twelve of us were unable to get breakfast. Fortunately next door they were frying up fish for the regular beach goers so we managed to get some food, hence we didn't have to lynch the cook.

As usual too, the beach was absolutely wonderful and therapeutic . 

Incidentally today was the birthday of the twins, Ayatollah and his good half Chully but as Johnathon had his graduation ceremony from UTECH  today,  Chully couldn't come so we had a celebration for our half, Charles! Betty and Lisa brought over a lovely cake and pies, most welcome after the stingy breakfast!

It was a fun celebration with Charles  who tried  to fool the MC (the regular guy who deals with the music there ) to announce Happy birthday to Betty but the mischief was quickly corrected.

Then Teresa presented him with a book that Barry had brought along entitled " How to use the Internet." Who knows, we may just live long enough to see Charles learning to use the computer as his other half Chully has been computer literate for years now. (My own brother, Bernie, a gynecologist had contemptuously dismissed the idea of using a computer for years, saying he created employment for others to do that job. Then his hospital went paperless in 2012 and he had to go to night school for 6 months to learn about computers, so basically,  he was dragged kicking and screaming into the  twenty first century! lol)

Of course, we could not miss the opportunity to take another group photograph.

Then as usual, despite how strenuous the morning had been, there were the ride backers with Maurice (RB), Omar leading the charge, Omar raring to go and Pat joining them to ride until the support vehicles caught up.  We caught up with her group at Windward road.

We saw another group of RBr's at the bottom of  Mountain View avenue and as we approached the stadium, we saw the lone figure of Barry charging way ahead of the pack as usual.

Those who missed out on today's activities really missed out on a great day of fun and camaraderie.

Photos supplied by Omar Downie.

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