NAN-HG-16
Cancer
By Olusola Oke
Akure, Oct.12, 2017 (NAN) A consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, Dr Sunday Adeboye, has called for adequate management of cancer and adoption of strategies to reduce its prevalence in the country.
Adeboye made the call at the 2017 Scientific Conference of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), Ondo chapter on Thursday in Akure.
The theme of the conference is: “Cancer: The Ravaging Menace”.
He decried the growing incidence of the disease in the country and the poor attention given to it by government at all levels in spite of its ravaging effects.
“The disease has affected the Nigerian population and breast cancer being the highest being the highest prevalence.’’
He noted that the dearth of cancer management centres in the country had negative implications on the awareness against the disease prevention and cure.
According to him, the development has also made data collation extremely difficult.
“Cancer registration in Nigeria is very poor just as there are no real dedicated centres to research into the disease.
“As we speak, there are only two radiotherapy machines working in the country.
“People that care for cancer patients and medical doctors that specialise on oncology, lack necessary equipment to work with,’’ he said.
According to him, they are not able to provide adequate care and accurate figures of people that are affected.
Adeboye, a former Chief Medical Director of State Specialist Hospital, Akure said that government should prioritise the management of the disease.
He said that this could be achieved through political will to establish more cancer management centres where people could go into research about the disease.
He attributed the poor data collation to the shortage of cancer centres.
He appealed to governments at all levels to give prioritise to the fight against cancer by creating more cancer treatment centres.
The Vice Chairman of the association, Dr Ishaq Ojodu also said that the absence of cancer management centres in the country had drastically slowed down the awareness and sensitisation programmes about the disease.
“Many of our people are dying silently in villages, not to talk of the public figures that have succumbed to the effects of cancer.
“Government needs to put more funds into research and centres that can handle the screening; investigation and treatment of cancers generally not only breast cancer.
“If we don’t have enough data, we will not be able to plan. We need scientific data to enable us chart the way forward.
“We need to have background data for all the diseases, not only cancer so that we can be able to plan ahead.
“If we don’t have data, we will not know the burden of this condition on our population,” he said.
Dr Wahab Adegbenro, the Commissioner for Health, commended MDCAN on its role in creating awareness.
Represented by Dr Taye Oni, the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, he said that the association was significant and important to the survival of society.
He identified funding as a major challenge for the association as a result of recession in the economy.
“One thing is to have political will and another is to have resources to back it up, but we must source for the resources because government is committed to ensuring good health services.
“The state government is trying to ensure alternative source of funding, and plans are on to introduce health insurance scheme in the state.
“But with increase in awareness, people will get more information so that they will know that cancer is a disease that can be managed,” he said. (NAN)
OKEO/JIE/GY
==========
Edited by Julius Enehikhuere/Grace Yussuf