Date Posted: 5/28/2013 5:48:29 AM
Posted By: Chadeshady Membership Level: Gold Total Points: 1697
Late last month, famous Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie braved the surgeon’s scalpel and underwent a double mastectomy on both her breasts to reduce her chances of contracting breast cancer. Barely two weeks after she went through the surgery, Jolie’s aunt Debbie Martin (the sister to Jolie’s mother) died of breast cancer at age 61. During Jolie’s surgery, it was determined that her defective gene BRCA1 was inherited from her mother who, unfortunately, also died as a result of breast cancer at the age of 56. The mastectomy on Jolie was considered to be a preventive measure to save her from suffering the same ill-fate that claimed her aunt and mother’s lives. If you read Monday’s Daily Nation (May 27th, 2013), you must have come across an item on page 11 titled, ‘Medics Raise Alarm over Cancer’; and the article went on to say how cancer is fast overtaking HIV/AIDS, Malaria and road accidents as the leading cause of death. Experts then called on the Government to declare it a national disaster.The world today is filled with an overwhelming dysphoria over the rising cases of cancer, and its many derivatives. Whether blood cancer (leukemia), breast cancer, kidney cancer, bladder cancer, cervical cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer et cetera, one thing is for sure; if no efforts are made to detect cancer during its early stages or administer treatment in its initial stages, the ultimate result is certain death. It is disheartening the rate at which our country is losing many of its patients to this ‘new’ killer disease; new in the sense that HIV/AIDS is no longer a threat like it used to be way back in the days there were no antiretroviral drugs. Not to sound monotonous in the famous phrase ‘tunaomba serikali itusaidie’ but the Government should put in place initiative where cancer tests are availed in most hospitals countrywide; not just major hospitals or those located in major towns/cities. They should also subsidize cancer treatment and purchase equipment that administer chemotherapy in at-least (because ‘almost’ would sound a bit far fetched) every hospital in all counties.We undoubtedly have a capable (digital if you like) Government and the lives of our citizens should not be put to chance by this plague. I’d also encourage most ladies out there (reading this) to go for cancer tests, especially breast cancer, because it is not only a reality but a very common pandemic these days.
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