Join campaign against breasts cancer in rural communities - Philanthropists urged

The President of Breast Care International (BCI), Dr. Mrs. Beatrice Wiafe Addai, has called on benevolent and philanthropists to join the campaign against breasts cancer in rural communities.

She said such support will help reduce the increasing rates of breasts cancer cases on the poor and vulnerable in the rural areas that are ignorant about breast cancer and its treatments.

Dr Mrs Beatrice Wiafe Addai made the appeal at Adwafo, near Kuntenase in the Bosomtwe District of the Ashanti region on Friday, January 28, 2022, during a free breast cancer screening and education.

The exercise forms part of BCI’s rural community outreach program which aims at educating and sensitizing rural folks, where the disease is rampant, for lack of knowledge and awareness.

She was accompanied by John Davies, of Compass Ghana, Katie Eccles, registered nurse specialist, both UK nationals and the medical team from Peace and Love Hospital in Kumasi.

“A lot of cases are found in the rural cases and that is where we should tilt our activities so that those people in these deprived communities will benefit from the free education and screening offered. These activities involve finance, that’s why we need financial support,” she noted.

Dr Mrs Wiafe Addai added that “we need to let the people change their perception that breast cancer is caused by witchcraft, the only way they will understand this is by providing them with knowledge and that is exactly what the BCI is doing”.

We believe that where a woman lives should not determine whether she should survive or die from breasts cancer, so we need to send the information to those in the communities. Do we have any palliative units and caregivers in these areas? We then need to educate the people and trained more nurses to be stationed there to offer medical care to breast cancer patients,” she stressed.

She revealed that the most advanced stage of breast cancer cases come from the rural communities, where most of them resort to traditional herb medicine in treating the disease.

She then advised women to refrain from the use of traditional herbal medicines in treating breast cancer and to report to any health facility if they notice anything unusual in the breasts.

The Chief of Adwafo, Nana Osei Bannor, who could not hide his joy when thanking Dr Mrs Beatrice Wiafe Addai and her medical team for the educative and free screening exercise, asked her to organize such exercise in the community to improve his people health.