Event Description
Fight Women's Cancer is the event for everyone, with one common goal: win the fight against cancer! The challenge is to cover the same distance our team travels to reach our patients in one month. This is 12,000km or 7,500 miles! All funds from registration and donation will go directly to Rays of Hope Hospice Jinja for cervical and breast cancer screening and treatment as well as for palliative care for women whose cancer is too advanced for treatment. To find out more about Rays of Hope Hospice Jinja, please visit our website at www.raysofhopehospicejinja.org
Whether you walk, run, ride or swim, everyone can join. Together, towards a Uganda with less cancer, more healing and a better quality of life for people with and after cancer. T-shirts and masks are available at our office at Plot 18b Kiira Road, Jinja, Uganda or at Local Flavours on Main Street, Jinja if you are participating from within Uganda. Please contact us on +256 771 619 991 for outlet options in Kampala.
Fight Women's Cancer will raise awareness of cancer, advocate for services and collect funds for Rays of Hope Hospice Jinja for much needed screening and treatment of women with early stages of cervical cancer and palliative care for those where the cancer is already very advanced.
In the developed world, cervical cancer is a diminishing disease; with widespread screening, precancerous lesions are diagnosed and treated early. The HPV vaccine also has the potential to eradicate the virus for future generations. In Australia, it is estimated that this will be the case by the middle of the century.
In Uganda, on the other hand, cervical cancer accounts for 20% of all new cancers, and 35% of all female cancers – 80% of these women present with very advanced disease. At RHHJ, we see the great importance of the cancer screening initiative as more than 45% of all women with cancer that are enrolled in our palliative care programme have cervical cancer (Feb 2020).
Almost all of these women come to us with very advanced diseases, and they are suffering. They have all of the awful, painful and degrading symptoms of advanced cervical cancer: not only tremendous pain, but fistulas, incontinence, heavy bleeding and offensive discharge. Too poor to afford diapers, these women are isolated in dark rooms, ashamed and afraid of the foul discharge and stains on their skirts, dresses and bedding.
RHHJ is able to help the women we have contact with, but there are many more out there, and many more women will be doomed to the same fate unless they are diagnosed and treated early for this awful disease.
Knowing the extent of the problem and the almost non-existent access to screening and early treatment for cervical cancer in the Busoga Region, RHHJ started a free screening programme in 2018, targeting the rural population and using the WHO recommended VIA test (Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid).
In 2019, we screened 1,264 women in the Busoga region – 8.8% of who tested positive and were supported with further treatment. In 2020, we screened 1354 women for cervical and breast cancer in 21 health centres in the Busoga Region of Uganda. One in every 15 women showed signs of beginning cancer, and they were treated on site. If women test positive for precancerous cells, they are treated on-site with cryotherapy or thermotherapy, or referred for biopsies if the cells appear to be cancerous. We plan to further expand this programme in the coming years.
We also screen for breast cancer, teach women how to self-examine and treat other infections that they may have on-site. In this way, we hope to prevent many cases of advanced cancer and promote overall women’s health in the Busoga Region.
