Posted by By Jamiu Yisa on
Women have been urged not to wait till they are bedridden before they go for regular cancer check up in the hospital.
Women have been urged not to wait till they are bedridden before they go for regular cancer check up in the hospital.
Social critic, Sefinat Muhammed, gave this advice at a press conference to herald the launching of a National Cervical Cancer Prevention programme (NCCP) for the screening of about 100,000 underprivilege women having the disease.
Speaking at the occasion, the founder of Renew Hope, an NGO catering for women and children, said: 'I am a victim of cancer myself. Mine was cancer of the head. I was able to overcome it because I voiced out immediately it was detected. I did my surgery at George Washinton University, where I did my MBA programme.
'The most important thing is that you voice it out once you detect that you have it, be it any form of cancer, because failure to do so means that the person involved is going to die eventually. Therefore, what we are doing here is to sensitise the people to come out and do the check up in order to ensure that they are free from the scourge,' she explained.
She urged women to come out of their shell and not pretend as if they are free of the deadly scourge, adding that she was not aware she had cancer of the head until it was detected at a hospital in Washington where she had gone for a medical checkup.
'I never knew I was having cancer. All I wanted to do was a medical check up, despite the fact that I was feeling dizzy and having pains on the right side of my head. They tested me and found out that I was having cancer. I did the surgery and I am alive today because I voiced out.
'I don't wait to check this again, I go to the hospital every two to three months to check my sugar level, cholesterol and what have you. In Nigeria, women spend their money on lace materials, gold and jewelry but don't have the time to check their health status,' she stated.
Speaking earlier at the occasion, Hajia Sandatu Bugundu, the Minister for Women Affairs, representing the First Lady, Hajia Turai Yar'Adua, expressed concern over the high incidence of cervical cancer patients in the country, describing it as alarming.
She disclosed that Nigeria loses 80,000 women to the disease annually, adding that a woman dies of cervical cancer every hour in the country.
'Cervical cancer kills more women than HIV/AIDS and more women die of cervical cancer than women die during child birth,' she added. She revealed further that rural women were mostly affected by the disease than their counterparts in the cities and attributed this to the absence of adequate medical facilities in the rural areas.
The coordinator of Mass Media Mission (MMM), Rev. Cannon King, disclosed that the group would train health workers from every local government area in the country on the principles and practice of cervical cancer screening, and establish screening centres in the 774 local government councils nationwide, before the end of 2010.