[Photo courtesy: Janet Kilalo]
At the height of the pink ribbon month, a community based organization dubbed Symbol of Hope convened its members, predominantly cancer warriors and survivors for a walk, at the heart Nairobi low income settlement of Kariobangi North. The young, middle aged and old women beamed with a lot of hope in their eyes, carrying placards and donned in pink as they created awareness on breast cancer.
The clarion call was on early screening for easier detection of cancer in the bodies of the young girls and women in the society. The organisation whose members range from various backgrounds were brought together by their shared fears, struggles and hope in their quest to beat their common monster, cancer.
They both laughed and cried. Exchanged of hugs as their only currency. The founder of the non profit organization Millicent Kegonga was all smiles seeing her members sharing glares and ear to ear smiles, when it seemed everyone else had sidelined them.
“I love seeing all of you happy. My desire is to ensure that you are comfortable with me and each other and share you personal struggles together because we are family,” She stated.
Her words were clothed with love. But they too were alive to the challenges bedeviling their access to medical care including inadequate support from the government. They lamented the new medical insurance scheme, lack of caregivers and expensive medicine among others.
”These people wants us dead. NHIF used to work very well. We don’t understand SHIF at all.” One of the warriors who spoke in anonymity told Pearl Radio.
Despite the government’s assurance that cancer patients will no longer be begging for money through harambees to finances their medical treatment, the state is found pants down with its inability to harness accurate data of cancer patients in the country.
Ostensibly, the National Cancer Registry is dysfunctional. As the adage goes, ‘Data is King’, it begs the question, then where does the state access its data to address issues surrounding cancer and its treatment in the country?
Talking to the media, when the Kenya Hospice and Palliative Care Association of Kenya were sensitizing the public about Palliative care, chairperson of the Board of the National Cancer Institute Dr. Timothy Olweny revaled that the registry only relies on hospitals reporting to access information on cancer cases and diagnostics.
”But with the shortcomings that we have with the cancer registries which is dependent on reporting from facilities and from healthcare workers, because of the absence of having an integrated system through which people can do cancer reporting.” He said
Upon taking a dive on the National Cancer registry website, it singly highlighed the ills blocking its mandate.
Screen grab from the National Cancer Registry website
On this backdrop, the cases of cancer highlighted by different agencies remain as secondary information with no government entity providing independent data other that what has been reported by health facilities. Here is the prevalence of cancer in Kenya.
- Prevalence: In 2022, the estimated five-year prevalence of cancer in Kenya was 102,152 cases.
- Incidence: In 2022, the estimated annual incidence of cancer in Kenya was 44,726 cases.
- Most common cancers: The five most common cancers in Kenya are breast, cervical, prostate, esophageal, and colorectal.
- Gender: Women are more likely to be affected by cancer than men. In 2018, 60% of new cancer cases and 57% of cancer-related deaths were in women.
- Age: 60% of Kenyans affected by cancer are younger than 70 years old.
- Late-stage diagnosis: 70–80% of cancer cases in Kenya are diagnosed in late stages.
It remains incumbent to note that while organizations like Symbol of Hope strive to sensitize the public on cancer, the government must own the menace by addressing teething challenges eg data collection and streamline the cancer registry by providing primary data of cancer spread.
From this, is when the state can deduce every single solution that it needs to be formulated to reduce the burden lifted by cancer patients and deaths.