PNG rural communities blaming cancer on witchcraft
The Papua New Guinea Cancer Relief Society says more needs to be done to educate rural communities cancer sufferers seek help rather than blame their predicament on sorcery.
Transcript
The Papua New Guinea Cancer Relief Society says more needs to be done to educate rural communities cancer sufferers seek help rather than blame their predicament on sorcery.
Lae cancer awareness co-ordinator Grace Ruddaka led a team to through 13 rural villages in the Huon Gulf district to raise awareness of the disease.
Ms Ruddaka says they discovered that people there were blaming symptoms of cervical cancer on black magic and witchcraft.
Ms Ruddaka told Koro Vaka'uta why the team was sent out.
GRACE RUDDAKA: We've been seeing a lot of women coming in with late stages of cervical cancer. That pushed us to go out. When we went out we found out that there are a lot of ladies having signs, experiencing signs of cervical cancer but because of a lack of awareness they assign it to witchcraft or black magic and as a result women are not seeking treatment at an earlier stage but rather later rush to the hospital only to be told the cancer is at stage three or four.
KORO VAKA'UTA: How can this be addressed? What can authorities, NGOs, government do about this?
GR: First and foremost would be cancer awareness reaching the rural population. With that also would be accessibility. We recommend visualisation screening to be conducted which can be conducted by health aid centres out in the rural areas because travelling for a pap smear can be really expensive.
KV: Were you able to stress going in earlier? Were you able to change behaviours do you think in this week-long campaign targeting 13 villages?
GR: The message is very clear. What happens is we had the village elders come and say now we understand the signs of cancer so that it would encourage younger women to go to the nearest health facility to get a check up especially ladies who are showing signs of cancer. Yes, the message is getting there.
KV: Do you think there is being enough done to spread information and awareness of cancers and cervical cancer in particular?
GR: From our perspective there is not really much. There is just a few organisations who are trying to work in addressing the issue but really agencies around the urban centres are not getting around to the rural centres which is where most of our cancer patients are from.
KV: Is the government doing enough in support?
GR: I really wouldn't be in a position to comment on that but from our point of view where the national cancer centre is, unfortunately we really can't see that, especially in the awareness sector we really can't see the government assistance coming in.
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