International childhood cancer awareness month November 2021

As we observe this year’s International Childhood Cancer Month and Day under the theme “My Child Matters”, let us remind ourselves of the tenets of the convention on the Rights of the Child, which affirms that every child, regardless of the socio-cultural background has the right to good health and care among others.

There is empirical evidence that about one thousand children are diagnosed with cancer annually in Ghana with a survival rate of around 20%. Among other causal factors are the following:

• Lack of awareness;

• Poor access to information and

• Late or no detection and lack of effective treatment

These causal factors, therefore, provide enough evidence that not all children have access to good health and care as enshrined in the Convention.

This indeed is a source of worry when one considers the fact that children under the age of fifteen years constitute about 38% of the population. More so most of these children reside in areas where there are inadequate health facilities.

We acknowledge the various interventions by both international and local organizations in this campaign. Accordingly, we salute Ghana’s Parliament, the Cancer Society of Ghana, and other strategic partners in their fight against childhood cancer. Nonetheless, a lot more work remains to be done especially in the rural and deprived communities where superstition and stigmatization on the disease thrives. RoMMef reechoes its call for the inclusion of childhood cancer treatment in the NHIS and remains resolute and focused on the establishment of a childhood cancer treatment center.

RoMMeF over the years has had a core responsibility to facilitate the setup of Cancer Registry across the nation to help mitigate the mortality rate for children suffering from Cancer.

Among the few is the Cape Coast Cancer Registry and the Komfo Anokye Treatment Centre.

RoMMef has decided to facilitate the setup of a Cancer Registry in the Volta Region (Ho Teaching
Hospital) by the end of this year to help record, manage and treat children suffering from Cancer in that Catchment.

Pediatric oncology is a major public health issue both in Ghana and globally. Families and societies are still grappling with the menace with its associated financial and native superstition challenges. The dynamics of the management of childhood cancer, therefore, calls for the application of robust interactions.

RoMMeF is at work to help facilitate the setup of Pediatric centers across the nation to help come to aid these children who suffer from Cancer.
It is in this regard that RoMMeF is leveraging the exceptional power of the media in putting a searchlight on the childhood cancer disease for societal attention and not treating the campaign as an annual ritual. RoMMef, therefore, calls for the marshaling of all forces – civil society, traditional
authorities, policymakers, development partners including the UN System, Corporate Ghana, and parents to join the campaign.

Remember to consider each childhood cancer patient as your cherished child and on this memorable season, make a solemn declaration to save a child from cancer.

In this way, we will be contributing our quota to ensuring a generation of children free from cancer; a feat that will forever be ingrained in the hearts of posterity.

RoMMeF is a non-governmental, non-profit, non-partisan and non-sectarian organization established in 2008 to help many children with cancer, gain access to affordable and quality health care.