CHILDREN WITH CANCER MUST LIVE!

On average the Paediatric Cancer Unit of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital has attended to about 100 new kids diagnosed with cancer every year since 1998. By 2013, more than 2,000 children with cancer had been seen in this Unit. In 2012 for instance, 84 kids between the ages of 6 months and 14 years were registered; this increased to 93 the following year and by the end of 2014, 135 new kids with cancer were registered. The figures so far at the end of June this year continue to show an upward trend with a total of 67 kids seen already.

Is cancer now an emerging trend among our children? I will say no but due to the implementation of child survival strategies, we are now better able to deal with the hitherto common childhood killers. As a result, far fewer children in Ghana are dying from preventable diseases such as infections, diarrhea and vomiting. Cancer has always been there however it didn’t have our attention. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), by 2020 cancer will be among the top causes of morbidity (illness) and mortality (death) in the developing world. We will therefore continue to see more children with cancer and as a country we need to prepare very well to deal with that eventuality.

So, what happens to children with cancer in Ghana? Well, to put it mildly, they suffer painful deaths at the end of inhumane treatment from our society. Close to 70 per cent of children with cancer who visit our hospital abandon treatment and/or die! This is a condition which when identified early and with appropriate treatment, elsewhere, 85 percent of affected children are completely cured.

Parents of affected children have to bear the total cost of diagnosis and treatment that can run into several thousands of Ghana cedis for a condition whose diagnosis and treatment in not covered by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). Personally, I find it quite awkward that conditions like breast cancer in adults are covered by the NHIS and a very curable childhood cancer, which forms about 45 per cent of all cases seen among Ghanaian children is completely neglected by the NHIS. This is very curious to say the least.

“Why spend all the family’s fortunes on one child for months of treatment while there are other children to be catered for?”

“In fact is he not going to die anyway?”

“Why bother? The pastor has said it’s clearly a curse and no hospital treatment can change that?” “I can always have another child doc; let this one go.”

“But doc you said even when we start treatment here, we still have to travel abroad to receive other treatments which can cure our girl; look at us closely; how are we going to make it to abroad?”

I hear the above outpouring of frustration and more every day. I do not believe that I love these kids more than their own parents. These parents are forced to make decisions such as choosing between having to cater for one child with cancer using their entire earnings or abandoning this child so the others can live normally: now, this is just too much for me. So, there they are; “criminals” created by cancer; sentenced to death by a failing health system; abandoned by society to die with indignity. I mean even if they will die should they do so in pain, in congested wards and in prayer camps bound in chains? I see humans but I don’t see humanity!

Since November 2014, I have been attempting to turn the situation around mainly through social media campaigns on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ChildhoodCancerAwarenessKATH) to create awareness and solicit funds for these children. And I must say, there are individuals out there keeping hope alive. Starting in February 2015 the Celestial Evangel Choir, Ghana has been conducting a church-to-church campaign with me for the same purpose. We appreciate the efforts of the Christian communities of the “small” churches and hope that the “bigger” churches will also respond.

We have not been able to attract the corporate world so far and we hope that our next event slated for the 6^th of September, 2015 at the Banquet Hall of the Georgia Hotel in Kumasi, will help bridge that gap. We hope to create awareness to corporate Kumasi through a night of Classical and Traditional Ghanaian compositions dubbed the “Hope Alive Concert” which will kick start several activities in the month of September, the childhood cancer awareness month, to reach out to corporate Ghana. We thank Unibank Roman Hill Branch, Kumasi for supporting this event and all our other partners.

I believe that together we can ensure that no child with cancer will die. Believe!

Author: Dr Lawrence Osei-Tutu, Specialist Paediatrician, KATH

Email: lawrenceoseitutu@yahoo.com