PHCC’s cancer screening programme carries out mammograms for 1,305 women in October
PRIMARY Health Care Corporation’s Screen for Life – Breast & Bowel screening programme registered a total of 1,305 women who did their mammograms and 1,966 other women scheduled to do their screening during the October campaign.
The PHCC’s main goal is providing best preventive and curative health services to the population. The Breast and Bowel screening programme is one of the most important preventive services in the corporation as the programme is concerned with enriching awareness about the importance of screening and its role in life saving.
The programme continues to develop and update the services to ensure highest level of quality for the public. From this standpoint, the programme reactivated one of the services and announced the successful conclusion of the national breast cancer awareness campaign.
Since its launch during the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant engagement towards Bowel cancer screening home delivery service for screening participants and it has had an incredible effect on the number of follow ups and screening assessments. In order to help the screening programme to reach more people in the community, home delivery service of the bowel cancer screening has been reactivated via Qatar Post.
The home delivery service is available for free, through which participants will be able to have a telephone consultation and then the bowel screening kit will be sent to their address via Qatar Post. It will be available for all the targeted participants, in particular those who have previously completed their screenings with the programme either once or more, patients who are unable to physically attend due to far distance or special needs as well as the elderly.
In October, PHCC delivered the Breast Cancer awareness campaign under the slogan ‘Symptom free is not disease free - Screen to be sure!’ The slogan was chosen to emphasise the importance of getting the routine screening even if you do not have any symptoms, as with any disease there is potential presence without any symptoms.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a yearly celebration held worldwide in October. The purpose of it is to raise awareness about breast cancer and the signs and symptoms associated with it, as when spotted earlier it is easily treatable, and patients can continue to live a healthy life. Research has also shown that breast cancer is one of the most common cancers among women, therefore the significance of this campaign is extremely heightened.
Dr Shaikha Abu Shaikha, director of the screening programmes at PHCC, said: “This year, we have successfully experienced a high level of engagement from our communities and the partnership across health sectors has been the key to ensuring that we reach our target audience.”
One key aspect of the national breast and bowel cancer screening programme is raising public awareness through such campaigns. Breast Cancer Awareness campaign aims to educate the public on the various signs and symptoms of breast cancer. While doing so, the public are learning the significance of routinely screening and what are the steps to be taken to access screening.
The month-long comprehensive campaign included print and social media efforts, and public engagement awareness activities, including lectures and activation health awareness booths.
Doha Festival City was one of the major supporters of October campaign where PHC had awareness booths from October 13 to 15 and October 20 to 22 as well as in-mall advertisement. Health awareness Booths were also present at nine different locations within PHCC headquarters building, Al Wajbah, Umm Slal, Mesaimeer, Rawdat Al Khail, Leabaib, Wakra, Muaither and Al Daayen health centres. Specialists at the booth educated visitors on the importance of breast cancer screening and registered the ladies in the target population to be called for the screening.
Furthermore, awareness for the campaign was also pushed by lectures about breast cancer and the importance of screening. There was a total of 12 awareness lectures presented to the staff working at companies and schools. PHCC also had collaboration with social media influencers to remind women about the importance of regular screening.
As part of their efforts to engage the public, the PHCC team also distributed giveaways at the screening suites. The campaign was also supported by Qatar Energy, WISH walkathon and several schools which distributed giveaways and the health education flyers.
“It is vital that we always remember that screening saves lives. Therefore, we must always ensure that we are up-to-date with our screening to detect the presence of disease at an early stage.