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December 4, 2008
Cervical cancer screening comes to Ntcheu, Malawi
Dear Friends,
Saturday, 29 November 2008, was an important day for 52 women in Ntcheu District of Malawi. Ntcheu is a friendly, country town about half-way between the two largest cities in Malawi, Blantyre and Lilongwe. With thanksgiving, I was able to drive to Ntcheu District Hospital on Thursday afternoon at the invitation of the district health officer and the head nurse of the hospital. I was invited to give a workshop on preventing cervical cancer through visual inspection of the cervix with vinegar and cryotherapy of early pre-cancerous lesion of the cervix. Dr. Ilena Hale, a Canadian volunteer doctor, had encouraged this plan, and I was invited to spend Thursday and Friday night with the Hale family, Ilena, her husband Dave, and two sons, Emerson and Oliver.
Ntcheu District Hospital is a busy center for all kinds of medical problems for children, men, and women. Thirteen individuals, two clinical officers and eleven nurses were able to attend lectures and demonstrations on this life-saving health service on Friday morning and afternoon. Since all of these health care providers were already conversant with women’s health issues and examination procedures, it was relatively simple to explain how vinegar can reveal pre-cancerous areas on the cervix. Explanation and a video about cryotherapy (freezing the cervix) was also presented. The cryotherapy machine for this hospital has already been purchased and will be hand-carried to Malawi from the United States in the near future.
Last year over 490,000 women worldwide were diagnosed with cancer of the cervix. Eighty percent of these women live in developing countries. Women infected with the HIV virus are ten times more likely to develop cervical cancer if they have also been infected with another virus, the human papilloma virus. Both of these viruses are sexually transmitted.
Saturday morning we 14 eager health-care professionals were surprised and delighted with the large and enthusiastic turnout of women who wanted cervical cancer screening. Somehow, word had gotten out to the ladies of Ntcheu that cervical cancer could be prevented with the free screening test. Friends called each other to come to the hospital. Women from the market left their shops to rush to the hospital. Police women and the wives of policemen came en masse to the hospital. There were so many women who wanted screening that we ran out of sterile speculums and had to ask some of the women to come back at another scheduled time.
Of the 52 women screened, five were found to have pre-cancerous areas on their cervix. Just as soon as the cryotherapy machine, which runs on carbon dioxide gas, can be installed, these women will be offered this preventive procedure.
Women waiting in the hallway of the Ntcheu District Hospital for cervical cancer screening. The smiling faces of these women remind me of the friendly, optimistic attitudes of African women, who bear the children, work in the fields, carry the water, feed the children, take care of their husbands, and still find time to laugh and sing together. Even if cervical cancer is a disease of poverty, a disease that can be prevented with adequate health services, these women have no poverty of spirit when it comes to their own health.
Sue Makin
The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer &
Study, p. 337 |
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