You Can Help! Join Pink Ribbon Walk, Nusa Dua, Fri. 8th May
Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in the world today. It is a horrific runaway scourge. One in eight women will get it during their lifetime. The only good news so far is that it can be successfully treated if caught in time. In Western countries 89 percent of women diagnosed with the disease are still alive 5 years after their diagnosis, because of effective screening programs. In the developing world the figure drops to just 57%.
Anyone who attended Dr. Tjakra Manuaba’s talk to the BIWA ladies back in July 2008 in Nusa Dua to raise cancer awareness and funds for the Bali Cancer Centre, and who saw the truly distressing slides presented by Dr. Tjakra of Balinese women with Grades III and IV cancers would know that in Bali breast cancer has attained horrific proportions, with disturbing local characteristics all its own. Dr Tjakra summed the problem Bali faces as follows:
- Most cancer patients come very late, usually too late, to hospital
- Disturbingly, over 70 percent of breast cancer patients were younger women
- 70 to 80 percent of women with breast cancer were already at Stage III or IV
- Bali has no Cancer Centre to help these women
- There is no registry, no public or professional education programs against cancer
- There is no mass screening programs for breast and colorectal cancers
- Although chemotherapy is available, in most cases it cannot be used because it is to expensive and not covered by insurance
- There are not enough mammography and other diagnostic or treatment equipment to handle the problem. What there are, are old models, overused and often out of use due to break down. Hardly surprising when the current Sanglah radiation machine has to handle 50 - 80 patients a day
- There are not enough surgical oncologists, doctors, nursing staff to cope or trained technicians to operate the equipment even if it was here
- There is minimal palliative treatment for terminal cancer patients, little if any pain management is provided and no hospice care
- On top of all that, Bali is supposed to be a cancer treatment centre and cope with cases from the rest of Indonesia that lies to the East of here
It’s 2009 & It’s Not getting any Better.......
Dr Tjakra knows his subject well and knows what he is up against. He is a founding physician of the Prima Medika Hospital and Professor of Surgery & Oncology at Udayana University. If any man can get the much needed Bali Cancer Centre up and running it is he. Back in the 1970’s in Hawaii as a young doctor he faced a similar problem with the Hawaiian Islanders just as he does now in Bali, 40 years on. He is very clear about the solution, then as now. Mass screening and cancer education, followed by diagnosis and appropriate treatment. While maintaining his poise in public, it is obvious Dr Tjakra cares deeply about the suffering caused by this disease and which he knows from experience can largely be prevented or successfully treated. The fact that there is no palliative care, little or no pain management and the good work begun on home hospice care a few years ago just petered out through lack of funds, clearly distresses him. Just as the fact that medical insurance companies here refuse to pay for chemotherapy. He states succinctly, “we need to develop a non-profit Bali Comprehensive Cancer Centre, focussing on cancer eradication which is privately run so as to avoid government bureaucracy, following WHO guidelines for the treatment of cancer.”
The WHO states these as:
1. Primary prevention, through public and professional education
2. Secondary prevention, through mass and individual screening programs.
3. Tertiary prevention, through accurate diagnosis and prompt treatment.
4. Palliation therapy and treatment of incurable cancer and pain management.
It makes for quite a tall order to get the Bali Cancer Centre up and running, but the money, expertise and equipment needed can be available and is being raised both at home and overseas.
Here’s the shopping list:
Manpower: radiation (1), diagnostic radiologist (1), pathologist (1), radiology technicians (3), oncological nurses (5), a psychologist, GP and nurse for public education, and administration staff (3).
Hardware: urgent need for a radiation machine, a high quality Co60 would do; more modern mammography machines, pathology equipment for immuno-histo-chemistry staining techniques.
They Just Vanish....
Most of us lucky enough to be spending time here in Bali and fortunate enough to enjoy good medical cover or afford effective medical treatment, have probably at some time or another paused to give thought to the hundreds of thousands of Balinese men and women who are not so fortunate. Even so, it is hard to envisage the stark deteriorating reality. So many of those challenged with serious illness will have no recourse and will die, simply because they cannot afford treatment, even if available. They will simply vanish, left with no option but to return to their villages to be looked after by their families as best they can, often in terrible pain. That vision becomes doubly terrible when one considers that the majority women who will die from breast cancer are increasingly young women, and that a small amount of money spent on education and prevention could avoid so much of the suffering and death.
A Cohort of Women
Among those stepping up to the plate to assist Dr Tjakra in making the Bali Cancer Centre a much-needed and long overdue reality is a cohort of women, who have all had their own direct experience of breast cancer, many of whom are members of BIWA and YKIP, who are raising funds for the cause. Many such women are eager and willing to share their experience with other newly diagnosed women and, as anyone who has been up close to this disease knows, the practical, moral and emotional support of women to their sisters going through this, is an extremely powerful resource in their pulling through.
So Here’s to the Pink! Be there on Friday….
Here are the details:
Bali International Women’s Association & Bali Tourism Development Corp.
Bali Pink Ribbon Walk for Breast Cancer Awareness & in aid of the Bali Breast Cancer Centre
Friday, 8th May, 2009 at 16.00 hours
Start & Finish: The Amphitheatre, Nusa Dua.
(Well signposted: Near Pasifika Museum & Bali Collection)
Participation support: Rp250,000 per person
(includes T-shirt, drinks & snacks)
Also: mini-bazaar, lucky draw, raffle prizes, silent auction
& special entertainment.
For details Tel : BIWA - 288 686, 746 9607
BTDC - 771 0q10, 0813 371 2323
