Life-and-death realities of breast cancer
Wanted: JCS Mobile Mammography Unit
HAVING HAD a mastectomy from a breast-cancer diagnosis two years ago August, the lifeand-death realities of breast cancer is real to me. This was exacerbated by the fact that of nine colleagues who were diagnosed in a seven-year period, four are still with us.
I became keenly aware, having had the privilege of being one of four guest editors for The Gleaner’s breast cancer awareness publication, ‘Conquering Breast Cancer’ last October, how critical it is for the Jamaica Cancer Society (JCS) to have a mobile mammography unit to provide its outreach service to our women.
October is here again and the JCS is still without its mobile mammography unit. This machine, when in service, performed approximately 2,000 mammograms annually in underserved and rural communities across the island. Today, these women do not have any access to this lifesaving service.
Without a mobile unit, the Cancer Society’s reach to underserved and rural communities is significantly impacted. It is critical for the JCS to advance and strengthen community outreach to access the various communities to offer screening to women. The fact is that the mammogram remains the gold standard for early detection.
The JCS is seeking to raise J$100 million to replace the now obsolete unit. Through early detection, breast cancer can be treated, contributing to longer, healthier lives for our Jamaican women.
Partnerships are critical to the success of any cancer-prevention strategy. Collaboration with the private and public sectors and international organisations is necessary to strengthen and expand the JCS’s outreach programme to all parishes.
According to a 2013 Registrar General’s Department report, 346 women died from breast cancer, which is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among Jamaican women. As was stated in a report in the ‘Conquering Breast Cancer’ Gleaner publication in October 2017, the numbers are rising. The majority of women dying from this disease are diagnosed at an advanced stage, when the disease is difficult to treat.
EARLIER THAN GLOBAL AVERAGE
A recent survey conducted by the University of the West Indies and the JCS reveals that the median age of women diagnosed with breast cancer in Jamaica happens to be 52 years, which is eight years younger than the global average of 60 years. Approximately 60 per cent of the breast-cancer cases diagnosed in Jamaica are among women between the ages of 25 and 55 years, which tends to mean that it is a more aggressive form of the disease.
A glaring chasm is that mammograms are not being offered in the public health sector. Although the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) used to offer this service, the machine to perform the examination has been out of operation for the longest time.
Distress sweeps through when one wonders what the women from these underserved and rural communities are to do – many of whom are of limited economic means and have no health insurance? They don’t stand a chance for a better health outcome and, to the contrary, now view breast cancer as a death sentence, when it ought not to be!
To have a mammogram done in the private sector can cost as much as $21,000. The JCS, which conducts an estimated 10,000 mammograms annually, offers a subsidised rate of $4,000. Breast Cancer Awareness this October sees the JCS, despite all its challenges, targeting 1,000 women for screening at their Lady Musgrave Road offices.
In the October 2017 Gleaner special publication, ‘Conquering Breast Cancer’, Minister of Health Dr Christopher Tufton admitted that there has not been any mammogram service for several years in the public sector and that efforts were being made to change that reality.
“The National Health Fund (NHF) is in the process of procuring a mobile unit for the Ministry of Health to provide diagnostic and screening mammograms,” he said. The plan, the minister said then, was to make the service available at the four major public hospitals, starting with the KPH and the Cornwall Regional Hospital. The NHF and the chief medical officer, would be leading the charge, the minister added.
It is hoped that this mobile unit is a reality in the not too distant future and that the minister of health gifts the JCS the mobile mammography unit it is purchasing, given the track record and the success of the JCS’s Mobile Mammography Programme over the past 15 years!
Our women are in dire need of the diagnostic and screening services of a mobile mammography unit, and are appealing to the powers that be to help make this a reality for the JCS. This disease is not a death sentence, especially if detected early. Breast cancer can be prevented, but we have to avail ourselves of the screening services. How are we to detect when we are lacking in such standard services? Rowena King: Christene Two-year Cancer Warrior Media veteran/Journalist