Phalombe Health Centre to scale up cancer screening

Dream, a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) implementing cancer-related projects in the country, has donated cancer screening equipment and an oxygen cylinder to Phalombe Health Centre.

The [cryotherapy] machine is expected to scale up screening of women for cervical cancer following overwhelming demand for the service after an awareness campaign last November.

Receiving the donation on Wednesday, Phalombe district health officer (DHO) Ketwin Kondowe said the donation was timely as many women have been showing interest to come for testing.

“Previously the district relied on one machine and this was slowing the exercise. This is a milestone in the fight against cancer,” he said.

Dream country manager Lawrence Alumando said the NGO made the donation because the district, has high cervical cancer prevalence rate.

“We are complementing government’s efforts in the fight against cervical cancer. Our target is to provide cancer-screening machines to four health centres so that women should not travel long distances to access services,” he said.

District cervical cancer coordinator Ella Mkandawire said the fight against cancer can be won if more health centres have cancer-screening machines.

Dream is funded by Norwegian Church Aid. n