Ondo First Lady Urges Special Budgetary Allocation For Cancer Control | The Precision

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The
First Lady of Ondo State, Arabirin Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu has again
reiterated the need for a National Policy on Cancer Control in Nigeria.
Speaking
at the International CSOs Cancer Conference (ICCC) 2017, an event by
Civil Society for Cancer Eradication in Nigeria, which took place at the
National Centre For Women Development, Abuja, Mrs. Akeredolu stressed
the need for medical practitioners to adopt global best practices when
it comes to the management and control of cancer.
According
to her, many Nigerians are on their own when it comes to surviving
cancer thus the need to push government to take the lead in cancer
control through advocacy as obtainable in many other parts of the world
where government through policy plays critical role in reducing cancer
incidence and deaths.
At
the conference themed: Bridging the Gap between medical practitioner and
CSOs in the global fight against cancer, Mrs. Akeredolu used the
opportunity to call for budget appropriation for cancer control at the
federal and state level and as well the establishment of state owned
comprehensive cancer centers stressing that though the incidence of
cancer appears low but many Nigerians are bound to die more than those
in western countries where cancer incidence is higher.
Her
words: “Many of you must have had the opportunity to interact or
network or even attend conferences of some of these international
organization and you know we have a continuum on cancer control which
starts with awareness, prevention, early detection, diagnosis,
palliative care and so on.
“If
you look at the incidence rate which is about 90.7, relatively when you
compare those figures with what obtains in western world, you may say
well the incidence is quite low but we are more likely to die from
cancer than those in the western country where the incidence is higher
if you look at our death rate”, she lamented while questioning why the
pattern has not changed over the years since her winning her own battle
against cancer 20 years ago.
“I
have been in this fight for over 20 years now – what are we all doing?
Why is it that the pattern hasn’t changed? These are some of the
questions we should begin to ask ourselves. We have been told to be
serious about cancer control. I don’t think we have been doing really
well when it comes to the area of prevention – if we are honest with
ourselves. And that could be linked to paucity of funds. 
 
Another thing
is logistics- it might sound simple but how are we going to get to these
rural area to create these awareness”.
The
climax of the event however was conferment of an Award of Excellence on
Arabirin Akeredolu in recognition of her contributions in the fight
against Cancer.

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