Great turnout at the free cervical cancer screening

The Ministry of Women, Children, and Poverty Alleviation organized a free cervical cancer screening today with the Fiji Cancer Society at the Nausori Market to commemorate January as cervical cancer awareness month.

Fiji Cancer Society Clinical Nurse Manager, Karolina Tamani, says today’s event saw a good turnout from women over the age of 50, even though their target was women within the age range of 30 to 50 years.

She adds they appreciate these elderly women as they can be role models to the younger ones who are a bit reluctant to visit the clinic which will motivate them to come forward to the clinic.

“Cervical cancer is one of the major concerns of the Ministry of Health, and our attempts to reduce morbidity and mortality still have challenges.” The challenge is most people are not coming. If only they seek advice and also for them not to wait until they feel the symptom if they can come before symptoms are experienced or are felt that means they are completely healthy they can come forth and that’s the only way we can prevent.”

This is a build-up to World Cancer Day, which will be launched in Taveuni Hospital on February 4th.