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Black Women Lose Out on Cancer Treatment

Philippa Garson
BREAST cancer is essentially a curable disease these days, but for most black woman sufferers in South Africa It is still a killer.
Ignorance of the warning signs of cancer, prevailing traditional beliefs, an inadequate primary health care system and poor socio-economic conditions are to blame
While the cancer form has a far higher incidence among whites, the disease is rising rapidly among urban blacks. The trend is world-wide.
The most recent statistics released by the National Cancer Association of South Africa show breast cancer to be the second most common i .farm pt cancer tp stylhe ’ aw^n-4-after' cervical canter among the blacks and skin cancer among whites.
The link between breast cancer and a diet high In ani | mal fats now seems undisputed and may explain its growing incidence in lower socio-economic communities.
Local surgeon and breast cancer expert Dr Myron Lange I says: The fastest increase I among city-based blacks could I be related to the high con-I sumption of fat-containing I foods. Junk foods like hamburgers and eggburgers."
The increasing number of sufferers can. for the most part, be attributed to a fast growng population, an Increasingly aware public and earlier detection with the npw widely used mammogram, a tow dose x-ray which can detect lumps too small to feel during physi cal examination Mammograms I are expensive and not always I available in outlying areas
Research has shown that most black women, often lack I ing education and access to f health care/*g either ignore I the lump until it has reached an advanced stage, visit a san ■ goma (tradittonai heater) who cannot treat the cancer effec
tively, or fall to return for fhe follow-up treatment required for cancer sufferers
Breast clinics around ih country report that up to 70 per cent of their black patients do not return for preventative or curative treatments.
"And most of our patients are either too scared or too unaware to present themselves In good time 1n the first place." says Dr Lesley Seymour, who is based at the breast clln les attached to Johannesburg and Hillbrow hospitals, both in
, Johannesburg.
She sees a marked difference between the patients at the two hospitals. "At Johannesburg Hospital (with predominantly white and Aslan pattents) ft is unusual to find women in tlx breast clinic who have not had master tomies
"Whereas at llillbrow. for the majority who have breast cancer, the disease has spread to the extent that tt Is too late for surgery."
These women must queue for hours on end for chemotherapy or radiotherapy and are often too poor to pay the travel expenses to return for further treatment
Sister Joyce Lehoka started the breast cancer clinic at Oarankua Hospital, mainly servicing surrounding rural ar eas. eight year ago
She has conducted unique research on 100 sufferers. Their attitudes, levels of understanding. the treatment they sought, led her to con chide that "breast cancer is a kilter amongst blacks. This to due to lack of information in the community. lack of screen ing laclhtlo*. fear and igno
half of them thought the lump in their breast was an abscess which would open up. release puss and heal ' Roughly 35 per cent were not unduly
alarmed." taking no immediate action The rest saw the lump as cither caused by their baby burp on the breast during feeding, keeping coins Inside the bra or a witche s curse.
Ninety per cent of the pattents first consulted traditional healers, churches or vis tted local clinics only when the cancer had reached an advanced stage
She found that the clinics, whose nursing sisters were not always aware of the tell-tale signs of cancer, where often stow in referring patient* to hospitals with cancer-treating facilities
Many women believed their 'abscesses' had to be "doctored" by tradittonai heal er* or home made potton* which "»plt out" the pain and poison.
Ixhoka found that patient* tended not to lose faith in traditional healers who were unable to cure them, but Instead believed that the worsening condition wa» due to the potency of the witchcraft, cau* ing illness — a belief which grew stronger when western medicine failed to cure the patients’ terminal cancer.
Many women are loath to have mastectomies because of •uperslltutiou* beller* They fear ancestor* may not accept them If they are burled with out parts of their bodies or believe that the removal of the left breast will affect their hearts, say* Lehoka
Reach for Recovery, a support group for women with breast cancer. whose members must too be breast cancer *uf ferer* has had little success recruiting volunteer* tn black communltie* to counsel patients on the emotional and physical traumas of mastec tomy. the follow up treatment and awareness of possible re eurrence of the disease