From Our Correspondent
Cancer survivors and relevant stakeholders converge for the sixth online sensitisation webinar organised, on Saturday, by Khayr Cancer Health Initiative (KCHI).
TheNewsZenith reports that KCHI is a non-governmental organisation, focused on the care, advocacy, research and empowerment of cancer patients in Nigeria.
A Professor of Epidemiology and Community Oncology at Gombe State University, Prof. Danladi Adamu Bojude, delivered the key presentation during the webinar.
The title of his paper is “Cancer Survivorship: Opportunities and Challenges Associated with Successful Cancer Diagnosis, Including Post-Treatment Support”.
Boguje, also the Director of the Institute of Health Sciences, Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe, listed five components of survivorship care.
These include treatment of diagnosed disease, follow-up post-treatment, physical rehabilitation, emotional support and social support.
Others are financial support (evaluation and intervention for socioeconomic consequences of cancer and its treatment.
Such consequences are job issues, loss of income, school difficulties, lifestyle modification, late effects management and health promotion.
According to him, common challenges associated with cancer care include emotional distress treatment of side effects, financial strain, relationship changes, body image and self-esteem.
Others are fear of recurrence, information overload and navigation of complex medical information and decisions among others.
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Bojude identified current opportunities available to cancer patients in Nigeria due to the renewed efforts of stakeholders.
Such opportunities include early intervention, personalised treatment, support networks (NGOs and FBOs), lifestyle changes, advanced treatment, increased empathy as well as resources and services provision.
Bojude reiterated an African proverb that says “It takes a village to raise a child”.
He, therefore, emphasised the need to ensure people have access to quality and affordable cancer preventive services and treatment.
Dr Basira Hanafi Lawal (Consultant Clinical and Radiation Oncologist at the National Hospital Abuja, Nigeria facilitated the session.
Prof. Adam Yahaya Ukwenyah of Ahmadu Bello University University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, Nigeria) was the Chairman of the event.
Ukwenya stressed the need for stakeholders to develop more patient-centred approaches to care involving close relatives and family members.
Welcoming participants, Dr Bilikis Farouk Usman, KCHI’s Board of Trustees, spoke on the need for follow-up on screened patients.
Usman, who is also the Head of the Department of Radiology at Barau Dikko University Teaching Hospital (BDTH), Kaduna, such patients should “never be abandoned”.
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