386 diagnosed with cancer in 2020
MBABANE – There were 386 people who were diagnosed with cancer in 2020.
This is according to a report by the National Cancer Unit (Oncology) which held a Members of Parliament (MPs) sensitisation workshop in collaboration with the Ministry of Health at Sibane Hotel in Ezulwini yesterday.
Prinicipal Secretary in the Ministry of Health Dr Simon Zwane emphasised that the aforementioned figure was simply an estimate and it was possible that more people had been diagnosed with some form of cancer in 2020 alone.
According to the Programme Manager of Eswatini National Cancer Control Unit Xolisile Dlamini, there was an evident increase in the number of middle aged people who were susceptible to cancer which was similar to HIV/AIDS statistics, which also labelled the middle aged group as the most HIV infected group among the populace.
“Cervical cancer has the highest number of diagnoses in women and men while prostate cancer is the highest leading type of cancer diagnosed,” highlighted Dlamini.
She mentioned that cancers which were frequently diagnosed in the country were those with underlying behavioural causes such as cervical cancer and Kaposi sarcoma, which is HIV-related.
“The medical charges when a cancer patient is treated in the Oncology Unit are based on the stage of the cancer, with screening and precancerous treatment costing E26 267.17, stage one cancer treatment costing E62 385, stage two E510 611.97, stage three E510 686.40 and stage four at E827 993,” confirmed the programme manager.
She further stated that currently the country was able to provide two types of treatment from the three required by cancer patients. These treatments are chemotherapy and surgery while the one not availed in the country as of yet was radiology.
This required for the patient to be transported for treatment in SouthAfrica which was quite costly.
Dlamini elaborated that treatment of a cancer patient took six hours, therefore at the Mbabane Government Oncology Unit it was common that all the patients who came for treatment or diagnosis could not be attended to on time yet some of them came from afar. Therefore, according to Dlamini, the need to provide cancer-related services at the TB centre was vital and they appreciated government’s willingness to convert the TB Centre.
The Minister of Health, Lizzie Nkosi, also made remarks during the workshop. She praised the Oncology Unit for its dedication to ensuring that the populace is not only correctly diagnosed but gets speedy treatment.
She stated that she was appealing to women all over the country to go to the nearest health facilities which availed check-ups for cervical and breast cancer more especially because we were now approaching October which was breast cancer awareness month.
She thanked those who had attended, particularly the ministry’s portfolio committee members, whom she stated that through this workshop would be able to identify what else needed to be done in order to improve the sector’s approach to cancer in the country.
Deputy Chairperson in the ministry’s portfolio committee and Kubuta MP Musa Mabuza posed a question on whether the ministry was looking into conducting doorto-door campaigns in rural areas in order to sensitise people in those areas about cancer and ensuring that such services were made available in those areas.
Another question of how best they could get people to check for cancer in health facilities was also posed by a member of the committee to which the minister responded by stating that the ministry had increased cancer awareness through cancer education campaigns in rural areas and mentoring and training of staff.
Facilities
Meanwhile, Dr Zwane said active case finders were also trained and the work flow management in health facilities needed to be focused on in order for patients to not only go to the hospital to be treated for one thing but also be receptive to doing broader medical check-ups which include cancer check-ups.
The mandate of the workshop was to sensitise members of the Ministry of Health Portfolio Committee as well as that of the Ministry of Tinkhundla and Administration about the cancer situation in the country as well as the need for the TB Health Centre in Manzini to house more patients with non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure.