Dormaa-Ahenkro (B/R), Oct. 12, GNA – The Dormaa Presbyterian Hospital (DPH) has organised a training for 21 selected nurses on breast cancer-related topics as part of activities to mark breast cancer awareness month in the Dormaa Central Municipality.
The trainees would be located at various screening centres to educate, sensitise and counsel women visiting the centres.
The campaign being organised by the Hospital, in collaboration with the George Gyawu Family Foundation, is expected to screen about 500 women in the Municipality.
Mrs Florence Effah, a public health nurse and campaign coordinator, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview at Dormaa-Ahenkro in the Dormaa Central Municipality of the Bono Region.
“The trainees were taken through topics such as the risk factors, behavioural choices and related interventions that reduce risk of breast cancer, signs and symptoms, diagnoses and treatment”, she said.
Mrs Effah said 2.3 million Ghanaian women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020 while 685,000 deaths occurred globally due to breast cancer.
As at the end of 2020, 7.8 million women alive had been diagnosed with breast cancer in the preceding five years, making it the world’s most prevalent cancer, she added.
Mrs Effah said in Ghana, 2,688, 2,784 and 2,902 deaths occurred in 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively, adding that the DPH too recorded 33 breast cancer cases in 2020 and 11 in 2021.
She said signs and symptoms of the disease included painless lump or thickening in the breast, alteration in size and shape of the breast and abnormal nipple discharge.
Mrs Effah stressed “the disease is treatable”, hence there was the need for early detection, diagnosis and treatment.
GNA