By Mildred Siabi-Mensah
Takoradi, Oct. 8, GNA – Ms Raissa Sambou, a survivor of breast cancer, says there is a critical need to raise the bar of a campaign to cover many men who might be suffering silently with the condition.
“Breast Cancer is not only the woman’s lot,” Ms. Sambou said.
Ms Sambou, a media personnel, who suffered from the condition and is now an advocate for early detection told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that the lack of access to information on the disease especially in rural communities was worrying.
As part of her ongoing door-to-door campaign, she is raising awareness about breast cancer in rural communities, focusing on both men and women who often lacked access to healthcare information and treatment.
“My campaign aims to educate people in underserved areas on early detection and prevention…Prevention is always better than cure, especially when it comes to breast cancer,” she said.
She revealed that the campaign, which began in Tomefa, a fishing community in Ga South Municipality, sought to dispel the misconceptions surrounding breast cancer in rural areas, where fear and stigma often prevented early treatment.
Ms. Sambou personally shared experiences on early detection which she revealed she said, significantly improved survival chances and reduced the need for aggressive treatments such as chemotherapy and surgery.
The campaign would be expanded to parts of the Eastern and Central Regions, with the goal of improving awareness and saving lives in areas where access to healthcare remained a problem.
She is also concerned about the impact of breast cancer on families, especially children.
Through her initiative, dubbed “The Raissa Child Protection Initiative”, the multiple award-winning journalist, advocates the wellbeing of children by empowering their parents to take better care of them.
She also underscored the importance of adopting a preventive approach to managing chronic health issues, especially given the limited resources at many healthcare facilities in Ghana.
Ms Sambou expressed concern about how rural residents often had to travel long distances across regions to access basic medical services like mammograms and CT scans.
This, Ms. Sambou noted, contributed to the high number of undiagnosed cancers and late-stage diagnoses, which severely impacted treatment outcomes.
She lamented that even in cases of early detection, the lack of adequate cancer treatment equipment in the country often hampered patient survival.
She said: “For instance, at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the nation’s largest referral centre, only two radiotherapy machines serve hundreds of patients, forcing many to wait for months before receiving treatment.
“My campaign is not only focused on awareness but also on advocating for improved healthcare infrastructure, especially in rural communities, to ensure that early detection led to timely and effective treatment.”
GNA