Actionaid Nigeria Offers Free Cancer Tests to 100 Women

Segun Awofadeji in Bauchi

About 100 women have benefitted from free cancer screening offered by Actionaid Nigeria in partnership with the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital Bauchi in Bogoro and Kirfi Local Government Areas of Bauchi State.

A medical team led by Consultant Gynecologist, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Dr. Habiba Ismail, conducted breast and cervical cancer screening/test in five communities in Bogoro and five in Kirfi LGA of Bauchi State.

Addressing journalists during the exercise, Ismail disclosed that selection of the beneficiaries was done in a most transparent manner as women who were most vulnerable were first offered the opportunity to be screened while several others went home disappointed as they could not afford cost of screening.

She implored women, particularly those of child bearing age not to toy with their health but to endeavour to ascertain their health status through periodic medical check-up, warning that both breast and cervical cancer posed serious threat to women’s lives.

Ismail recalled that when similar exercise took place in Bauchi last December at the ATBU Teaching Hospital, majority of the 1,100 beneficiaries came from the state capital saying Actionaid/Fahimta’s partnership with the ATBU Teaching Hospital to extend the cancer screening to women in the rural areas was most commendable.

In her remarks, the Executive Director, Fahimta Women and Youth Development Initiative Bauchi, Hajia Maryam Garba said her organisation, with support from Actionaid Nigeria believed that such humanitarian gesture should be extended to thousands of women in the rural areas especially Fahimta’s focal local government areas.

The free cancer testing and screening were conducted in Lomen-Fulani, Tubule, Kwagal, Dankwa and Zindigawo all of Kirfi LGA. While in Bogoro LGA, Mbal, Gizaki, Dambar, Ungwar Rimi and Gobbiya benefited from the exercise which cost Actionaid Nigeria about N200,000.