CLWCF Childhood cancer awareness walkathon held in Lagos
The Children Living with Cancer Foundation (CLWCF) last Saturday held the 2018 edition of its annual rally for the sake of children living with cancer. Popularly known as Walkathon, the annual walk held annually mainly with the aim of creating awareness for cancer in children, took place on Saturday, September 29.
Taking off from Hall 36 Car Park inside the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) in Idi Araba, the procession marched through many streets in Surulere along with a band, with a major part of the awareness being the sharing of thousands of leaflet and handbills provided by CLWCF.
Speaking about the event, Mr Adebayo Bukola, a representative of Afriglobal Medicare Limited who heads the company’s corporate department, said: “We are calling on everyone to support children living with cancer because cancer is not a death sentence and people should be more aware that it actually afflicts children. The mentality people have is that only adults suffer from different forms of cancer but it does affect children also. I can tell you the very youngest child anywhere can actually suffer from cancer, so we are calling on everyone, corporate bodies to come together and support this cause. I believe together we can achieve success.
“Afriglobal Medicare is a comprehensive and diagnostics centre and apart from supporting this organisation, we also render free screening for these children as much as we can for some of them who will require tests like CT scan, MRI and other pathology tests. We try as much as possible to get them across our facility and render these services to them. Getting people to pay for these investigations or even for people to go to the hospital is a problem, so for now, the focus is on getting the kids to stay alive.”
Speaking to New Telegraph, Dr. Nneka Nwobi , founder of Children Living with Cancer Foundation, said: ” This is about the 10th we have held annually. We started it 15years ago, I started the foundation because I felt there was a need. Working in Lagos University Teaching Hospital, (Luth) here I saw children that needed help and there was no body to help them. One or two of them that I got close to were discharged to come back but they never came back because they could not afford it.
To think of it, their parents actually sold off their properties for that admission, thinking that the child would get better and after that, everything would go back to normal but of course, cancer is not a one -off thing. It is a continuous thing sometimes the treatment can go up to two or three years depending on the stage, that it is detected. That was actually how I started.”
Dwelling on the lack of funds to do as much as she would like the foundation to deal with, Dr Nwobi said: “I complain about this every year. It has been God all the while because we have had instances that we did not have anything. At times I tend to somewhat play God, in the sense that we have cases where two children need help and I will be wondering who should I help? Is it the one that looks as if he is going to die tomorrow or the one who just started and has a higher chance of survival and because I’m a mother, I cannot start thinking of which child is better of.
Sometimes, it is heartache when you see these lovely children dying. Funny enough most of them are quite sharp and brilliant children, it is hard but we try to do what we can.”
On the data of those who get to survive among the children, she said: “We are getting better and better results. Initially, it was a dilemma that out of 10 children, only one or two would survive, about eight to nine of them will pass on, but now things are getting better.
“We are looking for how we can get 25 percent cure rate by 2025. For me, it is an abuse or an insult on African countries because the White’s are having 80 to 90 percent chance of survival and they are telling us that we doing 25 percent by 2025 is something recommendable. I don’t believe and I think we should aim for 50 percent by 2025. If we continue creating awareness and people are actually supportive, it will get better .
On getting sponsors, Dr Nwobi said she gets sponsors at times through words of mouth. “Some times, we reached directly out to people by asking them to support.
For instance, Afriglobal diagnostic centre that support this work, actually called me and say we heard that you are doing this, how can we come in? They are quite awesome; they give us free investigations and sponsor the awareness creation each year. They have been supportive.
We have others like Gtbank, although we are not in their coverage for CSR, every year, they give us something and because adults are not very kin to listen to us, we have gone down to schools.
Recently, Pie Field School in Lekki actually had this walk, we walked from their school to the gate which is quite a distance and back to the school with their children. They have been quiet supportive, they supply the water taken in the ward on weekly basis. Little like that, we have people who support actually.
I keep saying if Nigeria government gives us N200m Monthly, we will be able to get the therapy drugs that these children need.
Speaking to Olumuyiwa Kayode, the father of a survival cancer child, “well, it is a long story but we thank God. It has not been but I still give Glory to God. They diagnosed my child of leukemia (cancer of the blood ) which took almost four years for treatment, just about 6 months after he came out of it, another one started. We did the biopsy, they called it mouskin uekmia , we have been battling with it since 2016 November, we finished that chemotherapy last year July. Just February this year, he came up with a relapse, the relapse he just finished this August. This time we are hoping someone to help us with the radiotherapy.
The Machine here in Luth is down, they referred us to Abuja, the national hospital for the therapy which we still hope to get someone to sponsor us. I learnt the bill is very costly for a child at Abuja National hospital-N300,000 for the radio therapy not to talk about the accommodation and transportation.
Source: NewTelegraph
