Talking Cancer: New Cancer Hospital Fully Functional; Gives Patients Hope

The wards for adult male and female patients at the Cancer Diseases Hospital (CDH) are now up and running and fully functional. Housed in a multi-storey building constructed in the second phase of the first ever public cancer facility in Zambia the wards which include the paediatric section have a bed capacity of 262. According to Dr. Susan Msadabwe, the hospital’s acting Senior Medical Superintendent, all things being equal, the CDH will begin admitting paediatric patients before the end of July 2016.

The opening of the in-patient wards at the CDH is by and large a major achievement for Zambia’s public health sector even though cancer treatment comes at a huge cost to the government. But thanks to the various co-operating partners who have made it possible that all essential cancer treatment drugs are available all the time. Also through Zambia’s Ministry of Health the CDH has been able to keep the various cancer diagnostic and treatment machines in good working order all the time. Even when these machines breakdown they are urgently put back in working order just to ensure that cancer patients continue getting the best they can from CDH.

Strictly speaking without the CDH a lot of cancer patients including myself would have been long gone. For my part I have continued telling people that I am a true testimony of one being diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer and getting local treatment at the CDH without having to be evacuated to India or nearby South Africa and getting back inform. It is actually very difficult for one to tell I am living with cancer.

If I am looking good today the CDH is responsible for that. Before I started treatment one year ago my Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) level was over 4,000ng/ml against the normal level of 0.00 – 4.00ng/ml. The last PSA reading done on March 30, 2016 was 1.2ng/ml. At the height of my treatment my body weight had reduced to 53 Kgs from my normal 72 kgs. I am now 6 kgs over what had for years been my normal weight. At 78 kgs I actually feel a little overweight and I am planning on a weight maintenance/reduction regime to either keep it at 78 kgs or go down to at least 75 kgs.

I underwent medical castration using tablets, radiotherapy, chemo-therapy and continue to be on other types of medication including an injection through the lower abdomen once every three months. But I also continue eating as much as I can especially that in the early stage of treatment eating had become a big problem due to loss of appetite, vomiting and diarrhoea.

I should mention here that almost all cancer patients that I have come across the last one year I have been an out-patient at the CDH testify to loss of appetite, diarrhoea and vomiting. All these I must testify are temporary side effects and should go away with time especially if one puts their mind to it. I continue telling fellow cancer patients that apart from medication cancer must also be fought with food, family support and most of all, the mind. This scenario continues to work for me and I am positively sure it can work for all other cancer patients.

Now regarding the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Zambia (PCFZ) of which I am the Founder & CEO which is now in its fourth month of operation having been officially registered as a non-profit non-governmental organisation (NGO) on March 17, 2016 three outreach activities have been undertaken so far. The first one, a public prostate cancer screening exercise held at Lusaka’s Manda Hill shopping centre on May 28, 2016, the second one a corporate prostate cancer screening exercise at the Stanbic Bank head office in Lusaka on June 20, 2016 and the third one a public prostate cancer screening exercise at the 18th Inter-Company Relay (ICR) hosted by the Zambia Amateur Athletics Association (ZAAA) on June 25, 2016.

All these three prostate cancer screening exercises were extremely successful. In-conjunction with the CDH and other partners like Alliance Pharmaceuticals and Sterelin Medical and Diagnostics PCFZ was doing the Prostate Specific Anti gen (PSA) blood test to check for prostate cancer on all these three occasions. The target group is men 40 years and above but it was encouraging that men in their twenties and thirties came through to see if they could be screened.

This is an indication that the basic senstitisation and awareness that has been carried out through featuring on Hot Fm Radio, 5FM Radio, Radio Phoenix and appearances on Muvi TV and Prime TV is bearing fruit. I was actually elated to see that one or two people who attended the screening exercise at the ICR officiated by First Lady Esther Lungu actually came from out of town. One gentleman who approached me to express his appreciation for the work PCFZ has embarked on said he had travelled that day all the way from Mazabuka specifically for the PSA blood test having seen me two weeks earlier on Muvi TV talking about the importance of men 40 years and above to do yearly screening for prostate cancer.

When the PCFZ fully launches its sensitisation and awareness outreach through pamphlets, poster billboards, regular radio and television programmes including infomercials, newspaper articles and adverts hopefully in all the languages used by the public broadcaster the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) a lot more men will get to appreciate why regular screening for prostate cancer is urgently important. Several screening outreach programmes including free prostate cancer screening are earmarked for all the ten provinces starting with the provincial centres.

This should start happening in the next few months. With regard to the PSA blood test and other forms of prostate cancer screening the PCFZ has already started to engage the Ministry of Health on the need to provide these services free in all public health facilities. So far the engagement with the Ministry of Health does not look bad especially that the permanent secretary Dr. Peter Mwaba at the first meeting indicated the government’s appreciation of the coming on board of the PCFZ and its work.

I want to end by emphasising that cancer is a debilitating disease. Caregivers especially family members must realise this fact and should avoid being emotional as a result of taking care of their relatives with cancer. Showing affection has proved to work wonders in many health situations that a family finds itself in and cancer is no exception.

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