Support for women with cancer
Local centre helps bring a smile to community
ONE small cancer-fighting organisation in East London holds the hands of poor rural women who arrive at city hospitals apprehensive and afraid.
Cansa SA’s local office supports women facing cancer with toiletries, counselling and compassion.
It is World Cancer Day today and yesterday the Cansa SA office in East London linked up with the Mdantsane-based NGO Gwedindlala in NU9 and held a workshop.
“It was about living a healthy lifestyle, cleaning, nutrition, being active and educating about cancer and how to take care of cancer patients,” said Vuvu Gqibitole, Cansa’s Eastern Cape divisional coordinator of service delivery.
Volunteers ran the workshop.
Gqibitole said she held a roadshow in Mdantsane which included school visits this week in the build-up to today.
Her office had adopted Ward J2 in Frere Hospital where they offered support to women, 80% of them poor and rural, who spent up to six weeks in the ward being treated or recovering.
They were also active in the oncology ward at St Dominic’s Hospital.
Their work included organising support groups at hospitals and back in the community.
“We work with Reach for Recovery, which gives a lot of support to breast cancer patients.
“We adopted Ward J2, furnished it, bought TVs and radios and we give out toiletries.
“We also sit with patients for an hour. In St Dominic’s we visit patients who are from outside East London. Most are poor and from remote areas.
“We run a support programme called Phakamisa (uplift). The Nahoon Methodist church is forever donating goody bags with toiletries.”
In SA, one person out of eight is affected by cancer, said Michelle Goddard, Cansa’s Eastern Cape community divisional manager of sustainability.
According to the department of health, World Cancer Day aims to reduce the number of preventable deaths by raising cancer awareness among the public and encourage them to seek access to prevention, treatment and screening.
The SA Health department said 8.2-million people die from cancer worldwide every year.
“Research revealed that South Africa ranks 50th on the list of countries with the highest cancer prevalence rates.
“Prostate cancer is the number one cancer diagnosed amongst South African men followed by lung, oesophagus, colon or rectum and bladder cancer.
“Amongst women, the most prevalent is breast cancer followed by cervical, uterus, colon or rectum cancer and oesophageal cancer,” the department said on their website.
Cansa South Africa’s message this year is “Inspire action, take action”.
Cansa CEO Elize Joubert said: “We sometimes hold the mistaken belief that cancer is a dread disease that other people experience.
“However, the reality is that we’re all affected by cancer in some way.
“The good news is that we all also have the power to take action to reduce the impact of the disease on individuals, families and communities.”
Today the Momentum Pink Day One-Day International cricket, the third in the series against Sri Lanka, takes place at the Bidvest Wanderers Stadium.
PinkDrive has since 2013 raised R2.25-million for breast cancer awareness.
At the Pink Day launch, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said living a healthy lifestyle should be a priority. — siyab@dispatch.co.za / mikel@dispatch.co.za