Sunyani-Ghana, Oct. 26, GNA-The government has been implored to prioritize the acquisition of mammography x-ray machines for all regional and major hospitals across the country.
Mrs. Constance Antwi Boasiako, a Senior Nursing Officer at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) Breast Care Centre, made the appeal when she spoke to the media in an interview after a breast cancer screening exercise in Sunyani.
Organised by Suncity Radio/Suncity Imperial Lodge in collaboration with the KATH’s Breast Care Centre, the one-day exercise was part of the breast cancer awareness month observation taking place every October.
According to Mrs. Boasiako, if the machines were accessible and state-owned, the charges for their services would be affordable and increase patronage to facilitate early detection, prevention and curing of breast cancer.
She said KATH did not own a mammography X-ray machine, but most of those machines were owned by private diagnostic laboratories because its charges were expensive.
Mrs. Boasiako stated that in advanced countries, women aged 40 years and above were called and reminded by insurance companies to take their mammogram scan every year, a situation that was different here.
She said the mammography X-ray machine “detects the tiniest of cancer cells in the breast,” saying due to its huge financial burden “I am encouraging all women to go for the scan at least once every two years to be sure of any developing cancer”.
Mrs. Boasiako announced it was detected through the exercise that some of the women had lumps in their breasts and were therefore directed to go for a mammogram scan and bring the results for advice.
She however, added those with ‘fibroadenoma’ (solid breast lump) cases but not cancerous would require an operation for the removal of the lumps.
Mrs. Boasiako said 306 women and men and were screened, saying 42 suspected breast cancer cases out of that were detected with lumps, heaviness and discharge and were therefore referred to KATH for further examination.
Mr Ransford Antwi, the Chief Executive Officer of Suncity Radio/Suncity Imperial Lodge in Sunyani told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in another interview that the partnership was part his companies’ corporate social responsibilities to bring breast screening closer to the people of Sunyani because “there is no breast cancer centre in the Bono Region.”
Mr. Antwi added it was also an effort to ensure quality health status of the people to guarantee a healthy population for high productivity of the citizenry for wealth creation.
