Medicaid disburses N100m to 60 Cancer patients in Abuja
By Matthew Denis
The Medicaid Cancer Foundation (MCF) has reiterated its dedication to raising awareness, supporting indigent female and male cancer patients, and advocating for stronger policies to improve cancer care in Nigeria by empowering about 60 Cancer survivors with a sum of N100million.
The Chief Executive Officer of Medicaid Cancer Foundation Dr. Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu disclosed the Fund Disbursement Ceremony held in Abuja on Tuesday.
She said, the motivation is the fact that we do not have enough cancer patients who are suffering and lying in rural communities undiagnosed and undetected and untreated.
"My voice has become powerful in calling for action from different stakeholders not just government but the private sectors, financial sectors, specialist, clinicians, a stronger health insurance in the system so that we can help to screen and have a National screening programme that is fully funded for our women and men for different cancers such as breasts, prostate and even some of the childhood ones.
"Behind this is the motivation I go to the global stage as a UICC board member I see how we have done in other high-income countries and I know that Nigeria is a country that has great potential with resources particularly with regards to human power. We have so many great dedicated medical experts, oncologists who are working in this sector but we just need the right structure. This is what I do and it pushes me to create a better life for cancer patients.
Dr Bagudu revealed that today is an important event as they are disbursing the sum of N100million for cancer patients who have applied for our different cancer programmes on funding, diagnosis. Some of the money will go to the hospitals for radiotherapy, surgery, keno therapy but it's a drop in the Ocean.
"To put it in perspective a woman that diagnosed a stage 2 Breast cancer today in Nigeria has a good chance of survival. Most of our patients are diagnosed in stages three and four and so the survival rate for breast cancer is about 25 per cent a five-year survival rate. If you go to the US, UK among others abroad their survival rate is about 90 per cent after five years. But that woman in stage two coming back with breast cancer needs about N25 million to cure her breast cancer female or male.
"We saw a male breast cancer patient today who said he has already spent N18million and he's going back for therapy again so when you hear about N100million sounds a lot but N25million per patient will only go for four of them. You can see the great impact of the disease and average family salary is about N75,000 so can they afford this treatment?
"We need to focus on early diagnosis and a system that will help us catch it early and then spend less on treatment. Today we have about 60 Cancer survivors who are benefiting and fundraising is what we do throughout the year and it's a donation from different organisations which we flag the programme in October yearly.
The CEO stressed that the government under President Ahmed Tinubu is on the right track and they have seen the opening of six new cancer centres and they just need more budgetary allocation to cater for cancer patients in the country.
The Head of Non-Communicable Diseases National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHDA), Dr Sulaiman Lamorde who represented the executive director at the event lauded the initiative by the Medicaid Cancer Foundation stressing that they will continue to work collaboratively in enhancing better treatment of cancer patients.
One of the breast cancer survivors, Jocab Olomade who was dismissed from Abuja Electricity Distribution Company lamented that he has been battling with cancer and spent N18million for treatment so far.
He appealed to the government to support NGO like Medicaid that are supporting cancer patients across the country.