A cervical cancer awareness and screening campaign starts today, with medical teams conducting outreaches in parts of Region Four as well as Charity and Wakapoa, located in the Pomeroon riverine area of Region Two.
The campaign, a joint initiative of the Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association (GRPA) and the Rotary Club of Georgetown will offer such services as free VIA screening, cryotherapy and pap smears as well as breast examinations.
This is the second such awareness campaign by the GRPA and it is boosted by a contribution of $1,170,000 from the Rotary Club of Georgetown, which was handed over yesterday when representatives of the two entities met over lunch.
The contribution, which was made with the support of Scotia Bank Guyana, was received by Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth, GRPA’s Executive Director.
“We are embarking on a plan to go throughout Guyana—we cannot touch all of Guyana but this time we will be able to go into some of the hinterland areas to provide testing,” Sheerattan-Bisnauth stated.
She called into the spotlight Guyana’s alarmingly high rate of cervical cancer cases. She noted that of particular concern to the organization is the high prevalence of cervical cancer in the rural regions where women oftentimes lack access to even basic medical services. The GRPA representative shared the organisation’s hope that the outreaches will strengthen the strides already being taken to fight cervical cancer in Guyana and improve access to what she described as the vital service of cervical cancer screening.
On this campaign turn, the medical team in addressing the high numbers of women who are infected but go untreated because they do not return for their results, will utilise the visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) method of testing in addition to the traditional pap smear. VIA testing, Sheerattan-Bisnauth explained, allows individuals to receive their test results instantly, so they can proceed with treatment on-the-spot, if the need arises.
“We’re doing visual inspections using acetic acid—this is actually somewhat new to Guyana. It was sometime in the 2000s that Guyana introduced the visual inspection with acetic acid which enables better reach because with this system of detecting we can also treat pre-cancerous cells immediately. A woman can get tested and screened and she gets her results straight away and if there’s a problem she can have cryotherapy.”
Although Guyana has made some advances in spreading information related to the contraction and treatment of cervical cancer, as well as extended its scope in delivering treatment, there is still much to be done as regards combatting this illness that has claimed the lives of so many Caribbean women.
It was mentioned that past community visits made by the organization revealed cases that were particularly troubling to them, such as the number of younger women who had contracted the Human Papilloma virus, which leads to cervical cancer. Sheerattan-Bisnauth stated that it was the organisation’s hope that in the future it can partner with other entities, both within and outside of the government, to gather data on cervical cancer in Guyana so that they are able to follow new patterns that are developing.
Dr Karen Boyle, President of the Board of the GRPA, commended the Rotary Club of Georgetown for taking the initiative to assist with this venture and emphasised the importance of entities lending a hand wherever possible in the fight against cervical cancer. In the words of Dr. Boyle, “The biggest tragedy is not so much that we have women becoming infected, but that the people who have the capacity to do something about it choose to look the other way.”
GRPA’s cervical cancer campaign will extend into December.
