By Alen Kee
Rep to request for mammogram machine for Tawau
TAWAU: Tanjong Batu assemblywoman Datuk Hamisa Samat will request to have a mammogram machine for Tawau district.
When launching the Pinktober Charity Run 2018 at the town field yesterday, Hamisa said she was shocked when Kinabalu Pink Ribbon (KPR) Tawau chairlady Christy Fe Salazar mentioned in her speech that there was still no mammogram machine at the Tawau Hospital, which the women of Tawau had been hoping for years.
She said she would bring the matter up at the cabinet meeting and to the concerned party, and she expressed hope that Tawau would have the machine by next year.
Hamisa praised Christy for organizing the charity run every year to help women suffering from breast cancer.
She said every year the number of women diagnosed with breast cancer was increasing, and every year many had died from it.
She said the Pinktober Charity Run was thus a program not only to collect funds but also to let people know about breast cancer.
Hamisa said the run created awareness, especially to women, to detect the decease at an early stage.
She said many women still did not go for early medical checks as advised.
Meanwhile, Christy said though KPR had always encouraged women above 40 years old to do a mammogram, sadly many refused to do so as Tawau Hospital still did not have a mammogram machine.
She said this year’s Pinktober Run’s theme was ‘Hope’.
Life is about making choices and ‘Hope’ is a choice and is the most powerful word in the English dictionary, she said.
“If Hope is our choice, then there is a promise of the future,” she said to more than 3,000 participants during the event yesterday.
She said KPR’s objective was to create awareness and giving support to the newly-diagnosed patients.
Yesterday morning’s gathering, she said, was to raise breast cancer awareness, emphasizing on early detection with the right medical attention to save lives.
“This is the key component to overcoming the battle,” she said.
Christy said she believed education should be the basic right of every women and KPR was making its efforts to share and make it possible.
“In short, we need more education than medication,” she said.
Also present was KPR president Nancy Tham.