Medical Coordinator of the Breast Screening Programme Dr. Shirley Jhagroo as she spoke during this past week’s launch for the 2020 Walk for the Cure event.
Although there will be no physical manifestation of the Walk for the Cure, the Barbados Cancer Society’s Breast Screening Programme (BSP) will be still fighting the good fight against the disease, which remains the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women and the most common cause of death from cancer among women in Barbados. These are the sentiments of Medical Coordinator of the Breast Screening Programme, Dr. Shirley Jhagroo, as she spoke during a media briefing this past week to announce the plans for the 2020 event.
With the Programme launching Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Dr. Jhagroo noted that the pandemic should not stunt the efforts or reduce the vigilance exhibited in the fight against the dreaded disease by saving lives through early detection. Highlighting the fact that the movement had mobilisedthousands of persons over the past 18 years, she stated that the level awareness had led to many more persons coming forward to be tested. “The awareness is undoubtedly responsible for the percentage of self-referred patients to the clinic, increasing from 10% in 2006 to just over 30% in 2020 with an average of 500 to 600 patients attending the clinic monthly. To date, the total number of clients seen at the clinic is over 120 000,” she said.
The pandemic did have a major impact on the programme with over $60,000 lost in revenue over a three-month period. However, Dr. Jhagroo said that there was some good to come out of restrictions as more persons, younger women in particular calling in for breast checks. “We had a definite increase in persons calling to make appointments just to come and have breast checks. So it has done some good in a way. The clinic did suffer financially but thank God we did really well in August and September looks even better. So at the end of the day we might have recovered, unlike what is happening around,” she said.
Going on to say that there was indeed an increase in numbers of positive cases, she explained that it was due to the heightened awareness. “Awareness makes a difference and this is why I impress upon people that if the awareness increases, you are going to find more and more patients with the diagnosis. One good thing is, they are early, which is excellent and that gives us heart to keep going. It encourages you and motivates you because you are seeing results,” she said.
With the programme setting its sights on increasing the quality of service to its patients, Jhagroo said that the next major project was to upgrade from a 2D mammogram machine to a 3D machine. With the equipment already secured through the contribution from last year’s walk and other charitable donations, the next plan of action was to refurbish the facility where it would be operated – a project to the tune of $100 000. However, the absence of the physical event this year would make realisingthat target even more challenging as Jhagroo noted that it was difficult to replace walk which increased from 100 patrons in 1999 to 25,000 in 2019. (MP)