According
to the Founding Trustee of the NGO, Mrs. Omolewa Ahmed, who addressed a press
conference on the occasion of the World Cancer Day in February, the NGO has “unfolded
a massive awareness campaign in every possible media outlets on cancer. There
are jingles on radio & TV. We have also secured the collaboration of
musical artistes in the state, who have recorded songs which will gain regular
air play as a way to alerting our people to the menace of cancer.”
In addition to this, the Foundation has embarked
on sensitisation tours of the 16 local government areas in the state out of
which it has covered ten at the moment.
Ahmed who is also the wife of the governor of
Kwara State led thousands of volunteers on each of the tours where they visited
traditional, religious and market leaders,
“explaining that the disease should no longer be treated as a death
sentence or some wickedness imposed by fate. We inspire the hope that everyone
in our communities would be his or her sister’s keeper in the renewed war
against cancer. We distribute information and educational materials to
sensitise Kwarans on the need to embrace voluntary screening and avoid
predisposing factors to cancer some of which are habits like alcohol, smoking
and lack of exercises.”
To make access easier for women, the
organisation has established three screening centres situated at the Adewole
Cottage Hospital and Children Specialist Hospital, Centre- Igboro and the Sobi
Specialist Hospital while efforts are on to provide more centres across the
state. It has also gone further to
establish the Leah Cancer Centre, an ultra-modern facility that provides full
blown medical services from counselling to screening and treatment for women
within and outside Kwara State. Ahmed said that her organisation is working
towards being able to provide every possible form of treatment at the cancer
centre although at the moment, the facility has the best equipment to nip
cervical cancer in the bud.
She had appealed to women to take advantage of
the ultra-modern equipment at the GRA, Ilorin based cancer centre for screening
of both breast and cervix at a very highly subsidized rate of N200 (two hundred
naira only). The sum of N200, according to Mrs Ahmed, was fixed to take care of
the disposables used for the screening. She added that efforts are on to
improve the capacity of the centre to treat diagnosed cases.
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