Cancer is a painful name mentioning.
In Muguga, a village tucked just a few kilometers from Kikuyu town, a cloud of grief hangs as family and friends converge at Grace Njoroge’s home to pay their tributes.
Njoroge succumbed to a long battle with lung cancer on Monday at Kenyatta National Hospital.
She was a community servant and was a true believer in women leadership, which won many people’s hearts in and out of her home village.
Her close friend, politician-cum-counseling psychologist, Gladys Chania in a plaintive tribute remarks she feels the pain of losing a loved one to cancer.
“Cancer is just a painful name to mention. It has taken a friend, my loyal supporter and a community servant. Grace, God knows we loved you,” offers Chania in her tribute.
Chania, deeply affected by the loss of a confidant says that the fight against cancer must undergo paradigm shift else families continue losing loved ones.
She attributed this to “societal ignorance” precipitated by lack of capacity building on the prevention of cancer.
“Every October you find health organizations and the health ministry celebrating World Cancer Day but still nothing much has been achieved. We lack the capacity building, lifestyle and voluntary screening frequency,” she quips.
She adds with studies revealing that cancer is treatable if detected in its early stages; a callbeckons on government’s part to change tact and enlighten its people with knowledge about cancer.
“Is our government ready to invest on an all-round process in community outreaches in screening all year round without waiting for October? If yes, we can fight cancer because information is power,” she notes.
“Counties should support the leasing of the testing and management equipment for our hospitals because they will go a long way in reducing cancer-related deaths.”
About 40, 000 Kenyans are estimated to be dying from cancer every year.
Last week Kenya Baringo South MP Grace Kipchoim died of cancer at Nairobi Hospital. On Tuesday Ganze ex-MP Joseph Kingi died after a long battle with cancer of the bile duct.
The counseling psychologist advised that to combat cancer, the country needs to move from high-powered advocacy campaigns against cancer just in October or when senior people within the governance echelons fall victims of cancer.
“Let’s educate our people about cancer not only in October or when we have senior people in the country become cancer victims.”
Further, Chania avers that even in the fight against alcoholism and smoking, there needs to be a clear message that these addictions predispose the victims to cancer.
To the society, Chania called for psychological support to those who test positive for cancer. She says many cancer patients lack psychological and emotional support from the society which makes them feel ostracized and it takes a toll on their health.
“Let us overhaul the mechanism to fight cancer and come up with proactive ways to do it better. We can save lives,” she notes adding; “This new advocacy should be inspired by Grace’s death. I dedicate it to her.”